The RNA World Hypothesis • Hacker News Board

Re: The RNA World Hypothesis

#41

Post by ramraj07 » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

usrbinbash wrote: post #35

ramraj07 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read your own ref. Optimistic estimates put the first appearance of life on earth as soon as 50 mill years after oceans formed. The Petri dish analogy was only supposed to be tounge in cheek but if you want to be pedantic then consider that the medium between the source and destination is a frozen vacuum which means you have billions of years for transmission and spreading.

Yes, and these oceans formed 4.5 billion years ago, aka. much longer than "few tens or hundreds of million years" > then consider that the medium between the source and destination is a frozen vacuum which means you have billions of years for transmission and spreading. And by what means does that spreading take place? Spreading implies a medium through which to spread, which doesn't exist in interstellar space. So t…

Seriously, Read the two sentences immediately after the sentence you got your number from in the Wikipedia page you referred. Earliest estimates go back further.

Re: The RNA World Hypothesis

#42

Post by usrbinbash » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 9:52 AM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #41

usrbinbash wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and these oceans formed 4.5 billion years ago, aka. much longer than "few tens or hundreds of million years" > then consider that the medium between the source and destination is a frozen vacuum which means you have billions of years for transmission and spreading. And by what means does that spreading take place? Spreading implies a medium through which to spread, which doesn't exist in interstellar space. So t…

Seriously, Read the two sentences immediately after the sentence you got your number from in the Wikipedia page you referred. Earliest estimates go back further.

And where exactly am I talking about "estimates"?

Quote from my post:

    "The earliest direct evidence,"

Direct evidence != Estimates.

Re: The RNA World Hypothesis

#43

Post by redwood » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

COGlory wrote: post #2

If anyone is interested in further reading on this topic, or on evolution/origin of life in general, I highly recommend "The Logic of Chance" by Eugene Koonin. The book pieces together the latest knowledge from all the major fields of biology (genetics/bioinformatics, structural/physics, etc), math, physics, and philosophy in a way I've never seen done before. It interrogates virtually every hypothesis of the origin…

Love the way you write--"It interrogates virtually every hypothesis" <-- terrific

Re: The RNA World Hypothesis

#44

Post by scrollaway » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 1:10 PM UTC

joshquin wrote: post #3

Stated Clearly has a great video about the RNA world hypothesis ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1xnYFCZ9Yg ) if anyone's looking for an engaging overview.

That was a fantastic video. It gave intuitive explanations to not just the hypothesis itself but how certain biochemical mechanisms function. Thanks for linking it.