One accomplishment of J. B. S. Haldane is that he, along with A. I. Oparin, addressed
the problem of the origin of life. Both of these researchers proposed a mechanism
(although different for each scientist) of molecular evolution, resulting in living
forms. Such a viewpoint assumes a form of continuity between purely chemical processes
and living processes. (In this regard it should be noted that evolution was first applied
during the 18th century, not in biology but in geology.)
Approximately forty years after the work of Oparin, and a little later after Haldane,
J. Lederberg continued to investigate the questions concerned with the origin of life,
except that now J. Lederberg's well-vetted NLM website claims that effectively his
investigations in this field were entirely his own, that no one else preceeded him.
Esther Lederberg studied the views of both A. I. Oparin and J. B. S. Haldane1 concerning extraterrestrial evolution, and worked with other
researchers, such as Harlyn Halvorson and Holger Jannusch, who were interested in this field.
1 See the sample page from Esther's 1946
class notebook on Evolution, in which Oparin's work is explicitly mentioned,
as well as her interest in Oparin's visit to NASA Ames Research Center in 1969.
Note: Although a major contribution to the field by Joshua Lederberg was the
coining of the word "exobiology", Lederberg's views on contamination have been
found to be faulty. As noted by Dr. Eric T. Kool of Stanford University,
contamination cannot be limited to living forms, nor even molecules such as
DNA and RNA. The depth of the correspondence between Aleksandr I. Oparin and
J. Lederberg at its height is rigorously discussed in:
Oparin correspondence .