The Origin of Life: Fortuitous Events? Chapter One

Many will tell you that life began billions of years ago at the edge of a tidal pool or at the bottom of the ocean. They assume that in such an environment, some chemical compounds were randomly assembled to create bubble-like structures, formed complex molecules, and began to reproduce. According to their thesis, all life on Earth happened to originate from one or more of these simple primeval cells.  

Other eminent evolutionary scientists don't think so. They conjecture that the first cells, or at least their main components, came to Earth from space. Why? Because the best efforts to prove that life can arise from inert molecules have been unsuccessful. For the past fifty years, no empirical evidence has supported the hypothesis of the spontaneous appearance of life on Earth from a simple molecular soup, and no significant advance in scientific knowledge points in that direction.