The Death Knell for Life from an RNA world
The RNA world hypothesis, to be true, has to overcome major hurdles: https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2024-the-rna-world-and-the-origins-of-life#3414 1. Life uses only right-handed RNA and DNA. The homochirality problem is unsolved. This is an “intractable problem” for chemical evolution2. RNA has been called a “prebiotic chemist’s nightmare” because of its combination of large size, carbohydrate building blocks, bonds that are thermodynamically unstable in water, and overall intrinsic instability. Many bonds in RNA are thermodynamically unstable with respect to hydrolysis in water, creating a “water problem”. Finally, some bonds in RNA appear to be “impossible” to form under any conditions considered plausible for early Earth. In chemistry, when free energy is applied to organic matter without Darwinian evolution, the matter devolves to become more and more “asphaltic”, Read More ›