Remember when RNA world just had to be true, in that multiverse/global warming/Darwinism way? Where the observer soon realizes that evidence is superfluous—is even a threat? According to many origin of life researchers, RNA world (RNA preceded DNA and once did its job) has had that status for some time now among science writers. Well…
From New Scientist:
Why ‘RNA world’ theory on origin of life may be wrong after all
Note: We are told, “Registration is required to view the article.” Not only that, but one can’t now even preview the first two graffs from the article before signing up for something. That said, a friend who did sign up offers the salient point:
At some point, the idea goes, this RNA world ended when life outsourced enzymatic functions to proteins, which are more versatile. The key step in this switch was the evolution of the ribosome, a structure that builds protein molecules from genetic blueprints held in RNA.
But that would mean that RNA would not be acting as enzymes, while proteins would—and that is not said to be a simple model at all.
Williams has further reason to question the RNA world. His detailed study of the ribosome shows that its most ancient part, which is identical in every living thing, acts as an enzyme to link amino acids in a growing protein chain. But this ribosomal core works pretty badly, Williams told the Astrobiology Science Conference in Chicago last week, and so is unlikely to be the product of a long period of evolution by natural selection.More.
Other theories by which life could just somehow have got started randomly were kicked around and contested at the conference.
As noted before, if we really wanted researchers not to find out how life originated, we would urge that they continue with full-bore Darwinism: Natural selection somehow acted on random configurations to produce trillions of sophisticated little machines. In fact, we discourage that approach. But there is no stopping Darwin’s zealots. It is the air they breathe. Hope the food at the venue is good.
See also: Welcome to “RNA world,” the five-star hotel of origin-of-life theories
and
Creationists terrified again?
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