Could RNA start life?

Using terms like "invent" and personifying nature can lead to some pretty serious confusion. Indeed, it is one of the flaws I see in creationist arguments regularly. Anyway, RNA, as well as proteins, etc., through certain chemical processes that would've taken place on early Earth. My understanding is that the information storage was a by-product. RNA would "held the fort down" until more complex DNA and proteins took the stage. Finding a a being with only RNA (such as bacteria) would strongly confirm this.This is just my idea, and I may be wrong on some of it. Please correct me if so.

Viruses.Google RNA worldEnjoy.

There has been an interesting new development. The creation of a working protocell which could almost be plausible in a prebiotic environment. The main problem seems to be that it needs citrate, which isn't plausible, but now that we know citrate solves some important problems we can start the search for alternatives. New Szostak protocell

sweet!

"There has been an interesting new development."Yes, there always is.And a few years later they all end up on the garbage heap.But they fulfill their PR purpose in the meantime...

I don't really think that genetics have ever ended up on the garbage heap. In fact, lots of people falsely being sentenced to the gallows on 'eyewitness accounts' have been freed because of genetics.It seems as if eyewitness accounts are a lot less reliable than genetics. The figures speak for themselves.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

You flatter yourself. Very few scientific developments become public knowledge at all.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that about scientific discoveries in general, which have greatly benefitted our lives and led to better understandings.I'm talking about this kind of discovery:
"The creation of a working protocell which could ALMOST be plausible in a prebiotic environment."
TRANSLATION: "Scientists are right on the CUSP of proving abiogenesis true once and for all"These are the 'discoveries' that end up in magazines and newspapers enough to give the public the impression that scientists 'pretty much know' that life originated by natural causes.Of course, it's been my impression that these 'discoveries' fall by the wayside and get forgotten, but by then the newest 'discovery' has taken the spotlight...and so on

"My understanding is that the information storage was a by-product."A by-product of what, if you don't mind rephrasing your second sentence?Sorry, but until I understand what you were saying in the second sentence of your post, I can't really respond to it

Most scientific work doesn't result in a shiny new edifice of discovery; and although they don't dazzle like the major breakthroughs they pave the way toward, complete failures and almost-successes are necessary steps.I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work
- Thomas Alva EdisonA present problem in science is that negative results are often not published. Edison worked at physical projects simple enough that he could make and profit from 10,000 failed attempts; scientific challenges have become too complex for that kind of brute force, one scientist approach. Well, if "pretty much know" is the epistemic bar, I'm content to say I pretty much know that life originated by natural causes.

You referred to a "PR purpose". My point is that the scientists have no "PR purpose". Scientists are notoriously bad at PR. That's why evolution and abiogenesis are so poorly understood.The ones with a "PR purpose" are the magazines and newspapers and they don't care what they publish as long as it sells magazines and newspapers.

"Most scientific work doesn't result in a shiny new edifice of discovery"I agree. And may I remind you, I have the utmost respect for scientists in general. Edited by Ed67, : No reason given.

But where do you think the journalists GET their incessant stories about the 'new discoveries' that all but prove abiogenesis? Do you think the press has moles in the scientific community that steal these 'secrets'?

I know you just want to discuss conspiracy media theories with ringo I'm suggesting your critique fails because it's quite sensible to pretty much believe that life originated from natural causes. So it's not a sly media con that creates that impression: it's reality. Good.Then you'll certainly understand why I feel that I pretty much know that life originated from natural causes.Tens (hundreds?) of thousands of those scientists whom we both respect have scrutinized the world from the subatomic scale to 14 billion years away, and they have yet to uncover any unnatural or supernatural causes.So if you hear, regularly, stories that suggest scientists are hot on the trail of a mechanism by which DNA-life life could have emerged (a better word, I think), that's because they are. The growth rate of our scientific command of the mechanisms of DNA-based life is breathtaking. Even at the threshold of creating synthetic organisms, we have found no need for magic.So, anyway, why wouldn't anyone feel confident that life originated from natural causes? What other kinds of causes have we discovered?

Curiously, this latest investigation is built on previous investigations and the increasing knowledge of how the basic systems and conditions needed work together to form a protocell.Things only end up on the garbage heap in science when they are invalidated. That hasn't happened here. What frequently happens is that such discoveries fade from the public consciousness as time passes.What is learned is a building block for later work. There is no PR purpose to science other than to let other scientists know what has been accomplished, usually via peer reviewed articles in scientific journals. so that another facet of science can be done: replication of the work by other scientists to validate the process and discovery. From having "science editors\writers" assigned to review the scientific journals and regurgitate the information in a dumbed-down and often incorrect article purportedly tailored to "average" intellectual comprehension. And then sensationalized in order to boost sales ... Slight correction: " ... that scientists 'pretty much know' that life could have originated by natural causes."We won't know how life actually developed without finding evidence of how that actually happened. And if you read the scientific journals rather than the glossy tabloid type magazines you would likely get a different impression: that the work is ongoing, that it is a slow process, that a lot of work goes into developments leading to the next stage of discovery, and that all the work done to date is building toward resolution of the basic question of whether or not it is possible for life to develop ... and that this appears to be increasingly likely.Consider this last work: it shows a self-replicating RNA inside a protocell ... rather a major degree of progress from the first spontaneous production of amino acids in the '50's eh?