Theories for the Origin of Life in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Over the course of the 19th century, evolutionary theories developed alongside the question of the origins of life on an initially lifeless Earth the advent of life was considered the first step in biological evolution. This chapter examines the origin of life theories from the principal evolutionists of the 19th century in particular, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin -to prebiotic experimentation and developments in astrobiology in the 20th century. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, abiogenesis became recognized as the first step in the evolution of living organisms. While abiogenesis was gaining traction among the scientific community, the latter half of the 19th century also saw renewed interest in panspermia as a possible scenario for the emergence of life on Earth. In the first decade of the 20th century, the panspermia hypothesis was challenged by the French biologist Paul Becquerel.