As Mazur tells it in The Origin of Life Circus,
In a couple of e-mails to me in January 2013, Andrew Pohorille, the senior-most scientist at NASA working in the origin of life field, objected to my story, “The RNA World’s Last Hurrah?”, “The RNA World’s Last Hurrah?”, in which I interviewed Paul Davies’ collaborator at Arizona State University, physicist Sara Walker. …
Pohorille seemed furious at story comments doubting the RNA world, although the Walker interview was a Q & A, and I’d quoted the “experts” and linked my interviews with them: biochemist Pier Luigi Luisi, wh characterized the RNA world as a baseless fantasy; theoretical biologist Stu Kaffman hadn’t worked; and Walker, who told me “most of the origin of life community don’t think that’s the definitive answer.”
The story gets better, of course. But that would be telling …
Maybe RNA world survives among pop science writers and high school teachers. That could make up for many defects, no?
See also: RNA world would work if only life were simpler