Re: RNA World
- From: rem642b@xxxxxxxxx (Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t)
- Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:52:40 -0700
From: spintronic <spintro...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
not in the too distant past, (oh i dont know, say last year) "RNA
World Hypothesis" was "TOUTED" as a viable "spark of life" -theory
of Abiogenesis.
I don't recall anybody in this newsgroup saying anything like that.
Perhaps you would be so kind as to do a Google search to try to
find whatever article you are referring to.
Not too much further back into the past, and some certain silly
person (who obviously was uneducatedly speaking out of their best
face) "touted" an unknown molecule, giving it a name "replicator"
Dawkins might have said something vaguely like that, way back in
1976. But I don't recall him touting it as a fact, or as a solution
to the problem of OOL. Rather he presumed such a molecule as a
premise for subsequent Darwinian evolution, and it might have been
*only* after DNA-based life had evolved that he the discussed
subsequent evolution. I don't recall anyone in the past few years
touting the mere word "replicator" as any kind of solution to
anything. Perhaps you would be so kind as to do a Google search to
try to find whatever article you are referring to.
Any "replicator" molecule would have to be big enough to make the
improbability of its forming spontaniously impossible.
Why does the first replicator need to be a **molecule**? Why can't
it be just a defect-pattern in a clay crystal, which pattern is
extended as the crystal grows, and which pattern is broken into two
independent pieces when the crystal breaks into two? Why can't it
be more than one molecule, no one of which replicates itself, but
where several of the different molecules catalyze the synthesis of
one of the other molecules, and this process applies to *each*
molecule that needs to be synthesized to complete the set?
Take the example of photosynthesis, a photon comes from the sun,
"decreases" the entropy of the leaf, by forming more complex
molecules, and increases the entropy of the solar sytem by moving
one photon from the sun to the earth.
That's basically correct.
But this says nothing of the quantum organisation taking place in
the sun, kepping the entropy of the universe constant.
That's utterly wrong. I can't tell from your English whether you
are making that completely wrong claim, or attacking a strawman.
Applying this logic, to the supposed "metabolism first
COMPARTMENT". The compartment, is an isolated system, ...
No, it's not isolated. The compartment is somewhat isolated in
regard to large molecules leaking out, but relatively less isolated
for high-energy chemicals (from thermal vent) diffusing in, and
small waste molecules such as carbon dioxide diffusing out. This
diffusion in/out is what carries entropy net-out, making the system
very non-isolated in regard to entropy considerations. There's a
natural "decay" within the compartment, whereby entropy slowly
increases, but this is more than offset by the in/out diffusion
which carries a greater amount of entropy *out*, so there's a net
decrease of entropy within the compartment.
there is no mention of what this compartment is,
I've seen lots of speculations what it might have been, such as
lipid membranes, metal films between bubbles within foam-like rock,
surface effects (adhesion and surface tension) on metal surfaces, etc.
what processes take place in it,
I've seen lots of speculations about various forms of chemistry
that might have been involved, especially auto-catalytic sets.
how is hereditary passed onto the next compartment,
At this early stage of the metabolism-first hypothesis, the
chemicals doing the metabolism are the only active chemicals there
are. The auto-catalytic chemicals make more of themselves, by
quantity, filing up that one compartmen more and more densely. Then
when concentrations of the auto-catalytic chemicals are
sufficiently high, individual molecules of each different chemical
species leak out to adjoining cells, and soon as there's at least
one molecule of each species from the auto-catylitic set in the new
compartment, the autocatalytic process can then start running in
that newly-colonized compartment.
how the compartment protects against "noise" from the enviroment.
Given that the only small chemicals dissolved in the local water
supply are useful chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide, and inert
chemicals, and given that the walls or surface-effects of the
compartment protect against large molecules easily moving in/out,
there is no need for any further protection against "noise".
.
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