From: rokimoto557@gmail.com   
      
   On 2/7/2026 4:34 PM, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:   
   > On Sat, 7 Feb 2026 11:27:46 -0600   
   > RonO  wrote:   
   >   
   >> 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.   
   >>   
   >   
   > There maybe countless systems that sort of worked but got outcompeted; if   
   > they ain't around now (or some remnant from the LUCA), then we don't know   
   > about it - as in the "Adam & Eve" discussion, only the surviving ones erm   
   > survived. Yet here we are. And Goddidit is never a scientific answer.   
      
   That is my take on the issue.  Early replicators were likely just a mess   
   of complex molecules competing for resources.  Only the conglomerates   
   that formed into early cells and replicated in messy, likely, unequal   
   divisions eventually evolved the genetic code as it exists as part of   
   life today.  It looks like there was an RNA phase where the original   
   self replicator functions were replaced by RNA versions that did the   
   same things.  We do not have examples of the ones that existed before   
   the genetic code evolved.   
      
   Ron Okimoto   
   >>   
   >>> TIME   
   >>>   
   >>> How long would this lineage need? One million years? One thousand years?   
   >>> 100 million years?   
   >>   
   > Who knows? but in Earthly terms it didn't take long (for geological values   
   > of long).   
   >   
   >> 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   
      
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