[topher515]

If you haven't read "The Vital Question" by Nick Lane yet, then you really should.

One of the book's suggestions is that an energy-first analysis of life and the origins of life, can be incredibly explanatory—particularly since Science (and Pop-Science) has been so focused on genetics for so long.

In terms of the origins of life, the idea is essentially that rather than try to imagine how RNA could "just appear", we should look for places where there were natural, persistent, energy fluxes (the "fires" as you say), and try to understand how these energy fluxes began to resemble cells. i.e., were constrained into cell-sizes and began replicating.

Incidentally, the theory that Nick Lane puts forward of which particular energy fluxes gave rise to life is sea-floor alkaline hydrothermal vents[1]—which is also discussed in the book.

[1] https://nick-lane.net/publications/origin-life-alkaline-hydr...

[adampwells]

There is a podcast interview [1] with Nick Lane by Sean Carrol that goes into more detail along these lines - a very compelling argument!

[1]https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2022/05/23/198-...