Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Second Comment on ENV - New Scientist Weighs in on Origin of Life

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

<blockquote><i>JonathanM naively assumed back then that a severe difficulty with the RNA
world was that you would have to first separately assemble base, ribose, and phosphate, and
then assemble all three.</i></blockquote>

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure producing <b>some</b> nucleotides (half in this case)
under <b>heavily orchestrated</b> conditions (manipulating pH, temperature, and UV
radiation levels) doesn't make his claim about <b><i>prebiotic</i></b> conditions any less
 true.

I found the following statement Charles Garner made a few years ago pretty relevant to this:

<blockquote>"The starting materials are "plausibly" obtainable by abiotic means, but need to
 be <b>kept isolated</b> from one another until the <b>right step,</b> as Sutherland
admits." [<i>emphasis mine</i>]</blockquote>

So do they only form independently or is the Sutherland paper just another case of citation
bluffing?

<blockquote><i>This shoots his credibility; scientists are supposed to admit their
mistakes.</i></blockquote>

I can agree with this, but deciding who is losing credibility is where we part ways.

In the meantime I would like to note that I envy you Jonathan M. I hope to acquire the same
depth of knowledge myself so I can put it to use and disseminate it to others.

- From behind seven proxies of course.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (GNU/Linux)
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=vYVI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments that aren't encrypted with my key and are also digitally signed with sender's own key go to the trash. I might skim them for lulz though...

This is the policy given to me by Janus. They don't agree with my views, but since they are willing to protect my real identity this is the least I can do in return.

Crypto-IDEA WA: Don't waste your time here. We have a far more cryptographically secure outpost than this one...