From: rokimoto557@gmail.com   
      
   On 2/6/2026 11:34 PM, MarkE wrote:   
   > The following seems to be a significant challenge for the naturalistic   
   > origin of life. Thoughts?   
   >   
   > PROCESS   
   >   
   > OoL assumes a progression from simple inorganic chemicals to a   
   > population of protocells and then on to the first population of free-   
   > living cells (pre-LUCA).   
   >   
   > Protocells provide encapsulation, replication and heritable variation,   
   > but are not "alive" in that they require feedstock supplies from the   
   > environment. The feedstock dependence tapers from protocells to pre-LUCA.   
   >   
   > ENVIRONMENT   
   >   
   > This process of chemical evolution and then Darwinian evolution requires   
   > the environment to supply nucleotides, lipids, sugars, amino acids,   
   > polyphosphates, metal ions, etc, in certain concentrations, with   
   > substantial homochirality, etc.   
      
   Who makes this claim?  We do not know what the first self replicators   
   required.  Things like nucleotides are required by the RNA world   
   scenario, but that likely came after the first self replicators existed.   
     To get everything started the first self replicators would not just   
   replicate themselves, but do things like make nucleotides in order to   
   facilitate their self replication.  My guess is that nucleotides evolved   
   to do what they still do today.  They are a highly useful energy coin   
   for the cell.  They store chemical energy and transfer the chemical   
   energy.  Polymers of nucleotides likely evolved to store nucleotides   
   inside the cells and keep them from diffusing out of the cells.   
      
   Lipids may have been among the first simple self replicators.   
   Conglomerations of lipids can have enzymatic activity that makes more   
   lipid, so the enzymatic lipid structures would get bigger and be able to   
   split.  Lipids could evolve other enzymatic functions as they self   
   replicated, different lipids could be made etc.   
      
   Chirality would be set by the self replicators.  The enzymatic functions   
   of the self replicators would likely work for one chiral form or the   
   other.  Just like many enzymes do today.   
      
   >   
   > The environment must also provide sufficient temperature stability, pH,   
   > mechanical agitation, structure (e.g. niche separation), wet/dry   
   > cycling, feedstock recycling, waste removal, etc.   
   >   
   > LINEAGE   
   >   
   > OoL assumes countless locations working in parallel as described,   
   > possibly with localised cross-pollination. However, there must be an   
   > unbroken lineage (or lineages) to from start to finish. Which implies   
   > the persistence and stability of the environmental requirements described.   
      
   There would be no such thing as an unbroken lineage during the origin of   
   life on earth.  There is nothing keeping any lineage from joining with   
   another, splitting and or joining with others.  There would be no   
   genetic code, no genome early life was likely a mess of self replicating   
   molecules.  Once a shell or membrane formed multiple replicators could   
   join together as proto cells.  They could start assisting each other in   
   replication.  There would be no cell lineages until you evolve a genome   
   for the RNA world where you need to maintain the complementary sequence   
   for the functional RNAs, and even after that there is no reason that RNA   
   based cells could not fuse and split off new lineages.  Horizontal   
   transfer of genetic material occurs today.   
      
      
   > TIME   
   >   
   > How long would this lineage need? One million years? One thousand years?   
   > 100 million years?   
      
   It isn't just one lineage.  The number of lineages at any one time would   
   be dependent on what environment the self replicators needed to replicate.   
      
   So the number of lineages vying to develop the RNA world and future   
   genetic code would be dependent on what environment that those self   
   replicators existed in.   
      
   There could have been trillions of them around a relatively stable hot   
   spring at any one time.   
      
   >   
   > PROBLEM   
   >   
   > What geological situation on the early Earth could provide the   
   > continuous, stable environment required for the duration needed? Even as   
   > little as one thousand years is long for a suitable system of geothermal   
   > ponds that is *uninterrupted* by any sterilisation/reset events.   
   >   
   > Polymers such as RNA break down over hours to decades depending on   
   > environment. Freezing or drying may extend lifetimes but also pause   
   > evolution. In any case, when active, continuous replication is required   
   > for renewal before decomposition.   
   >   
   > 1,000 years from chemicals to cells seems impossibly short. And 100,000   
   > years for the nursery required seems impossibly long.   
      
   Beats me how long it took to evolve the RNA world and subsequent genetic   
   code, but life seems to have evolved into the LUCA of Archaea and   
   eubacteria soon after the earth cooled enough to have liquid water.   
   Just a few hundred million years when the earth's surface was likely   
   more uniform in terms of the environment that the first life could   
   evolve in.  The data is also evidence that life evolved somewhere else   
   and Archaea and eubacterial lineages were deposited onto the earth.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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