In recent years, an ever-increasing amount of research has been conducted on the physico-chemical basis of the origin and evolution of life, or protobiology. Many questions are raised in this endeavor: What research methodology should be employed? What sort of dependable facts are available as a firm frame of reference upon which the physico-chemical origin of life or protolife could be examined? Is the origin due exclusively to chance events? If not, what is then responsible for the origin? What physical reality underlies the evolutionarily selective process leading to the origin? What role...