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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.bio,net.origins,net.philosophy,net.sci,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: The missing step -- self-reproducing organisms
Message-ID: <1215@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Nov-84 19:30:40 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1215
Posted: Mon Nov 19 19:30:40 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Nov-84 20:57:11 EST
References: <427@houxj.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 30

==============
Is the mechanism of DNA/RNA reproduction understood well
enough that someone could create other molecules with
similar reproduction abilities ?  Has someone at least
determined that similar molecules can be built from other
elements ?  I assume that actually building such a big
molecule from scratch is beyond present-day capabilities.
==============
Logically, it isn't necessary that molecules reproduce themselves.
What is required is that in their presence (or presence in the recent
past) the likelihood of finding another such molecule increases.

Surface catalysis might lead to such conditions.  Imagine a scenario
involving something rather like a crystal (viruses can form crystals,
so they are not limited to just non-living material).  On this surface
molecules of another kind can form by selective adsorption or some
such mechanism.  These other molecules can themselves seed new crystals.
Or again, think of the clay-surface catalysis that has been proposed
for construction of complex molecules.  If there happened to develop
a molecule whose presence on the surface slightly improved the catalysis
for making more of the same, the result would be sufficient to permit
evolution of better self-replicating systems.

Whatever happened, it's a pretty good bet that catalysis of one kind
or another was involved.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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