Friday quote: Shapiro on golf and the RNA World
by KrauzeOrigin-of-life researcher Robert Shapiro on the odds of a spontaneous formation of RNA:
The analogy that comes to mind is that of a golfer, who having played a golf ball through an 18-hole course, then assumed that the ball could also play itself around the course in his absence. He had demonstrated the possibility of the event; it was only necessary to presume that some combination of natural forces (earthquakes, winds, tornadoes and floods, for example) could produce the same result, given enough time. No physical law need be broken for spontaneous RNA formation to happen, but the chances against it are so immense, that the suggestion implies that the non-living world had an innate desire to generate RNA. The majority of origin-of-life scientists who still support the RNA-first theory either accept this concept (implicitly, if not explicitly) or feel that the immensely unfavorable odds were simply overcome by good luck.
February 16th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Hey K,
I think you mean Robert Shapiro. James (Jim) Shapiro is the Univ. of Chicago microbiologist who has co-authored papers with Rick Sternberg, and who has wonderfully provocative ideas about how organisms engineer their own DNA.
Now, back to the programme already in progress…
Comment by P A Nelson — February 16, 2007 @ 10:47 am
February 16th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Corrected, thanks Paul. I'm also prone to mixing up the Armstrongs – which one's the cyclist, which one's the muscian, and which one walked on the moon.
Comment by Krauze — February 16, 2007 @ 12:03 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I am glad to see someone linking to Shapiro's Scientific American article. There is no scientific reason to support abiogenesis. It is a position that is held purely out of metaphysical preference. My favorite quote from Shapiro's article:
Comment by Jehu — February 16, 2007 @ 12:13 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Frankly I don't see anything much different between the absurdity of non-telic abiogenesis and the absurdity of the idea that natural selection of atelic DNA changes can somehow create all the complex and integrated adaptation of organisms in the living world.
How does a DNA molecule specify wings and muscles, exactly?
How does another DNA molecule encode the behavior to fly thousands of miles and lay eggs in the place one was born, exactly?
Scientists have a DNA fetish and somehow imagine that the sequence of amino acids in a protein "encodes" for every complexity and nuance of organism form, structure, development, and behavior.
Yes, emperor. That's quite a lovely pair of trousers you are wearing. . .
Comment by MatthewCromer — February 16, 2007 @ 2:23 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
It looks like he's trying to change the focus of origin of life studies to monomers rather than polymers.
Comment by Guts — February 16, 2007 @ 2:59 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
That is clearly what he is trying to do. I don't see that he presents any evidence that monomers can do any of the things he theorizies. I just doesn't seem probable.
Comment by Jehu — February 16, 2007 @ 3:00 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
With an article like this, don't lose sight of the forest through the trees. The problems raised by Shapiro are not tangential or trivial, but instead, are deeply fundamental and show that OOL research, almost 60 years later, has still not moved very far from the lab of Miller/Urey. It would seem to me that most objective people would acknowledge that the OOL paradigm has yet to get off the ground in any meaningful, scientific sense. When it comes to the OOL, we are all effectively clueless and we should admit it.
I raise this not to prop up a telic perspective, but as balance to the dozens of critics over the years who show up to make it sound like great progress is being made with OOL research, often while citing obscure papers that themselves don't go anywhere.
The OOL remains the most obscure, interesting, and fundamental problem in all of science. To downplay it with promissory notes is not a convincing argument.
Comment by MikeGene — February 16, 2007 @ 8:10 pm