Why not Oparin? Well, I thought four people were enough, in addition to my two
sons and dad. I read a translation of Oparin's Origin of Life in pamphlet form in
the mid 1950s (being a "red diaper" baby, my dad bring it home) and had the
pleasure of seeing Oparin in person at an origin of life meeting at the Univ. of
Md (hosted by Ponnamperuma) in the late 70s. Oparin is certainly the father of the
origin of life scientific research program (Haldane acknowledged his priority),
and his primordial soup scenario still is a powerful heuristic in state of the art
research. However, I am convinced that Wachtershauser's hydrothermal origin is the
more probable explanation (note e.g., Fe4S4 groups in primitive coenzymes
remarkably similar in symmetry to the mineral substrate (FeS and pyrite)
postulated in Wachtershauser's scenario, the evidence the last common ancestor was
thermophilic and the step by step success in the experimental verification of
Wachtershauser's theory; see Science, 8/25/00,v 289: 1307-8). I fully expect an
experimental demonstration of the origin of a protocell in my students' lifetime.
An excellent account of the two competing scenarios is Lahav's Biogenesis. In any
case my book is mainly about the evolution of the biosphere, not its origin.
Charles Brown wrote:
> En relación a [CrashList] Exchange from Marxism and Science lis,
> el 24 Jan 01, a las 14:32, David Schwartzman (via Charles Brown) dijo:
>
> > Readers might like to look at the chapter of my
> > book "Self-Organization of the Biosphere', especially my attempt to
> > summarize some theses in a dialectical theory with explicit reference to
> > Marxist philosophy of science (Like Levins and Lewontin, I too dedicate
> > my book to Fred Engels, among others including Vernadsky, Lovelock and
> > Margulis). Well that's enough for my first intervention on this list.
>
> Whenever the concept of "self-organization" appears we are risking to develop a
> dialectical theory! I am too short of time to take part of the list this piece
> came from, but if there are many contributors like David there, then it must be
> really interesting. A question to David, that I would ask Charles to pass on:
>
> > Like Levins and Lewontin, I too dedicate
> > my book to Fred Engels, among others including Vernadsky, Lovelock and
> > Margulis
>
> Oh, why not Oparin?
>
> Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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