TED Review:The line between life and not-life

from: http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_hanczyc_the_line_between_life_and_not_life.html

For many years, I have lucidly denounced the evolution theory. It was not because I was being pious and thought this theory was blasphemy. It was rather because I thought this theory was not logical.

To prove the evolution theory, I thought there has to be an explanation for evolution from non-living things to living things, and I saw no explanation. It was left like enigma more than the Bible. For me to trust the evolution theory it was inevitable for someone to teach me this link.

And here I found this TED video. It was from Martin Hanczyc. I found this video very laudable since it came to prove the evolution link from non-living things to living things. This video started from telling that the boundary between non-living things and living things became very obscure by illustrating virus as an example. Then he gave the requirements for living things: body, metabolism, and inheritable information. Then with only few (non living) chemicals, he makes "protocells" which behave like a living organism. These "protocells" meet 2 of 3 requirements for a living thing: body and metabolism. Although these  "protocells" he illustrates cannot reproduce itself, they use environmental energy and move around. Some merged itself with another and some tend to exclude itself from others. What was most fascinating was that they tend to move to the area where they could absorb more energy and tended to stay there. Although there were no brains within them and they were just a chunk of few chemicals, it was flagrant for me that they acted in the way they could live more.

This video engendered my perspective toward the evolution theory. The content was very innovative and its presentation style was very relevant considering that it contained a lot of visual effects that satisfied me as a viewer. At the end, Martin left this video with levity in thinking of evolution theory and tried to put much gravity on how this foundation can be used in searching for another living things in the space, but I felt big gravity of this video on the evolution theory. The abstract explanation about the evolution stage was now authentic. Hypothetical explanation of the theory was now came to the ground in my sight. Although the terms in the video were very esoteric to understand, I acclaim this video to be very exemplary.