Re[4]: "God of the Gaps"

dr._henry_erbes@ftdetrck-ccmail.army.mil
Thu, 14 Mar 96 08:31:03 EST

Dr. Henry Erbes wrote:

>Although this is way out of my field, it always seemed to me that any
> sequence
>which contians information is only useful (and therefore actually contains
>information) if there is a way of either translating it or extracting it.
> Thismay be obvious for encrypted messages, i.e. they may look just like
>random letters. Consider what that does to the DNA code. With out a
>mechanism to translate it into protein formation, it is useless. Does this
>mean we have a chicken and egg situation for the "first" cell? Which came
>first, the DNA message to make the translating proteins, or the translating
>proteins? :-?

Glenn Morton Wrote:

Most modern thought is seems to be saying that RNA came first. It has
properties which seem to give it the ability to self-catalyse.

glenn


Again this is way out of my field, that (changing a worn out
expression), I don't know enough even to be dangerous.

The modern thought would be that the RNA would be able to form
proteins without a "translating" compound? Do the amino acids just,
"clump" together because they are in the presence of the RNA? I
thought the peptide bond is not the perfered linkage of amino acids,
and it required the "translating" proteins, to force that linkage, in
addition to do the selecting. :-?

Henry Erbes