Abstract

A retrospective of the debates on the origin of life: the virus or the cell? The virus needs a cell for replication, instead the cell is higher on the evolutionary scale of life. Viruses appear to have played a role in events such as the origin of cell life and the evolution of mammals. Even the simplest bacteria is far too complex to have appeared spontaneously at the beginning of evolution. Subsequently, evolution has been able to produce increasingly complex systems. The first true cell may have already been a product of evolution, resulting from a primordial community. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32719.92328