>1. Clearly, the "primordial soup" concept is active and well in
>the academic community!
>
>2. Pargellis appears to:
>(a) start with meaningful genetic instructions,
>(b) employ a mechanism within the computer for putting the
>instructions together as strings,
>(c) employ a processing routine to execute these instructions.
>This seems to model a scenario which goes far beyond anything
>that has been demonstrated as feasible for a primordial soup.
>
>I don't want to miss the thrust of what Pargellis is doing - so
>would value comment on this computer model (called Amoeba, by the
>way). Any feedback would be appreciated.
As in all abiogenic experiments, the presence opf the investigator foils the
abiogenic label. In this case as you point out the problem is much deeper,
since Pargellis has played God, by programming and using a computer. What
can I say. I won't deny that he is clever. But what he has done has *no*
relevance for abiogenesis of anything. If he were to grind the computer
into dust and sprinkle it in the ocean, and the computer appeared complete
with the code, running and produced what he says it did, then it would have
some relevance for the origin of life.
Art
http://chadwicka.swac.edu