Francis Japp: the “revival” of vitalism

Dedicated to the friend and mentor Professor Domenico Spinelli

Abstract

A question that, despite more than a century having passed since it was first asked, still awaits a scientific answer is the following: how could a symmetrical abiotic environment give rise to the homochirality that characterizes living systems? The various theories put forward and discussed in response to this question have not led to a consensus. Furthermore, the proposed theories had, and still have, no experimental basis. In my thesis, I have attempted to retrace the interesting debate that opposed biologists, chemists, and physicists at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Initially, the debate pitted vitalists against determinists, but later evolutionists also took part.