Theoretical origin of life; fun and games in the lab (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, September 13, 2018, 11:11 (2263 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTES: "However, nothing evolves unless it already exists. When life started more than three billion years ago, what was the spark that created something from randomness?" (David’s bold)

"Structural Capacitance Elements are localised regions of disorder within proteins, which retain the potential to coalesce into 'micro-structures' following the introduction of a mutation. They act as nucleating seeds, or 'feedstock' for evolution to proceed, providing the basis of an accelerated mechanism of Darwinian evolution by natural selection, supplementing the slow and incremental process of classic Darwinian evolution."

"The research team analysed many of these disease-associated mutations and found that these 'Structural Capacitance Elements' may allow mutations to trigger a 'gain-of-function' by inducing structure where none existed before."

DAVID’s comment: The key is their statement in bold that proteins have to exist for life to appear and develop. Early Earth was a planet with few if any protein molecules available, so how did life start?

There are two separate mysteries, which they seem to be conflating. One is the origin of life, which they then abandon, and the other is the mechanism that drives evolution. They are clearly championing random mutations for the latter, adding speed to Darwin’s gradualism, but the fact that these “structural capacital elements” allow new structures to be triggered doesn’t explain how or why they actually do it. Randomness certainly doesn’t explain the complexities of new organs.