I am Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and author of 13 books. AMA

As a Biology expert, I'd love to know your opinion about the first biological piece of matter to ever come to exist and how it could possibly survive and not instantly die upon being birthed into existence. That very first appearance of a biological cell was likely formed through unknown Chemical X and Y combining in the proper way to create an entirely new, organic piece of matter in the most simple form. How is it possible that this very first piece of bio-matter ever didn't instantly perish from the numerous hazards around it? Evolution had not yet taken place, so how could it possibly know how to eat or digest, move around or copy itself to allow the next generation to come to be? How could X + Y not only = organic life, but also precode that substance with all the traits it needs to survive instantly upon it's creation? It seems vividly daunting to believe that simple protons and neutrons in the correct sequence actually generate lines of code after combining to form that very first piece of biological matter to ever come to be.

It seems daunting also to think that this bio-organic piece of life, however simple it was, actually survived more than a few seconds and even long enough for it to split itself and allow generation 2 to come to be. These unknown processes making just one small piece of organic substance seems unlikely enough, but many scientists believe it was more like a factory line, pipping out the exact same type of cell repeatedly, with millions, maybe billions of them instantly dying because Evolution had not taken place yet to allow them to learn the required traits to survive sunlight, gravity, sloshing of the air or water, how to eat, digest or copy itself.

/r/IAmA Thread