From: rokimoto557@gmail.com   
      
   On 7/17/2025 11:38 PM, MarkE wrote:   
   > On 18/07/2025 8:16 am, Ernest Major wrote:   
   >> On 17/07/2025 06:44, MarkE wrote:   
   >>>  From this recent EN article: https://evolutionnews.org/2025/07/new-   
   >>> article-from-james-tour-undermines-a-pillar-of-origin-of-life-theories/   
   >>>   
   >>> 'In comparison to a protein’s half-life, the rate of polypeptide   
   >>> chain elongation under prebiotic conditions is very long. Yang et al.   
   >>> (2025) identify numerous barriers to sustained polypeptide growth,   
   >>> including the formation of non-peptide linkages and cyclic   
   >>> structures, stringent environmental requirements, and unfavorable   
   >>> thermodynamics. Their analysis establishes that the rate of growth   
   >>> must be far smaller than one added amino acid per chain per day."   
   >>>   
   >>> "Even assuming one addition each day, synthesizing a protein of 200   
   >>> amino acids would require over six months. However, the growing chain   
   >>> would almost certainly degrade in a much shorter time span. The   
   >>> challenge is even greater for RNA, which has a significantly shorter   
   >>> half-life and encounters additional chemical and structural hurdles   
   >>> during formation."   
   >>>   
   >>> Paper here: https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/biocosmos-2025-0010   
   >>>   
   >>> No doubt this paper will be critiqued and disputed, but it is I think   
   >>> an example of the ongoing scrutiny and developing fundamental   
   >>> challenges to OoL. My prediction is these will continue to emerge,   
   >>> weakening materialistic abiogenesis and strengthening ID's core claim.   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>   
   >> Given that it is widely believed that proteins were a late addition to   
   >> the biological repertoire why do you accept the claim that this is a   
   >> challenge to spontaneous abiogenesis?   
   >>   
   >   
   > RNA.   
      
   No one knows what the first macromolecular self replicator was made of.   
   My take is that RNA came later once nucleotides started to be made and   
   used for what they are still used for today (nucleotides are energy   
   storage and transfer molecules).  To store nucleotides inside of a   
   membrane enclosed cell you could make polymers that would not difuse   
   out.  These polymers can have enzymatic activity and could be replicated.   
      
   Really, no one knows what the first self replicators were made of.   
   Amino acids are among the top contenders because they have variant R   
   groups and can make interesting polymers, but other molecules like   
   lipids can have enzymatic activity.  My guess is that complex   
   carbohydrates could have been part of the first self replicators.  The   
   monomers can include nitrogen and sulfur, and phosphates can obviously   
   be attached.  Carbohydrates are not just carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.   
   They can form hydrogen bonds and covalent bonds to make branching   
   polymers.  Their use probably hadn't been explored as much as RNA and   
   amino acids because we do not have any examples of carbohydrates with   
   enzymatic activity, but that may be due to the fact that we haven't   
   really tried to develop any, and haven't found any using extant   
   lifeforms whose biochemistry has evolved to rely on amino acid   
   polypeptide enzymes with only a few ribozymes still existing.   
      
   Ron Okimoto   
      
   >   
   > OoL needs an information-bearing molecule from the beginning, i.e. to   
   > support supposed chemical evolution. This molecule needs to be self-   
   > replicating and probably self-catalising.   
   >   
   > What alternatives are there to RNA?   
   >   
   > "For a typical protein, the discovery time in one liter of water would   
   > be on the order of 10,000 years ([1], [2]), which is over 100,000 times   
   > longer than most protein half-lives. The situation is even worse for RNA   
   > since it has a much shorter half-life."   
   >   
   > [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3149   
   > [2] https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.90.9.3835   
   >   
      
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