Science labs are creating XNAs (or xeno-nucleic acids) some of which (anhydrohexitol nucleic acid ) can be run through directed evolution and fold into biologically useful forms. Life on earth uses DNA (now after billions of years of evolution); however life likely first originated using much simpler chemicals that would be easier to synthesize in the first instance, but would have been supplanted by the harder to synthesize (until the precursor catalysts are in place) DNA, because of it's superior fidelity. Several candidates for a pre-RNA information carrier exist and are being looked at. Threose nucleic acid TNA (it differs from RNA/DNA in it's sugar backbone) is on. TNA has the interesting capacity to bind with RNA through antiparallel Watson-Crick base pairing, which provides a potential pathway by which it could have transferred information from the pre-RNA genesis to RNA based life. Life could have had multiple genesis's and begun in its very simplest forms with a various different chemical structures encoding the hereditary information required for fidelity of reproduction. That almost all life (except a few RNA viruses) is DNA based is the result of trillions of generations of evolutionary pressure favoring the high fidelity of DNA.
________________________________ From: Russell Standish <[email protected]> To: everything-list <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, August 5, 2013 3:14 PM Subject: Re: Serious proof of why the theory of evolution is wrong I will bite on this, because unlike the usual rubbish Roger spouts, this is more on topic. Fortunately, it doesn't stand up to criticism. The argument is that because the standard genetic code is well optimised against error correction, and because changes to the code will be highly disruptive, it evolution must have proceeded very early on in life's history, that there wouldn't be sufficient time for the billions of experiments required to optimise the code. Assuming for a moment that there are many possible viable genetic codes. Then all of these genetic codes would have coexisted on different parts of the Earth. Gradually all but the small handful of very similar codes would be replaced by the code that replicates the most faithfully. This process would be like hill climbing optimisation, and happens very fast, geologically speaking. The few hundred million years available early on in Earth's history before the last universal common ancestor would be ample for the task. Unlike human languages (referred to in the article), there would be no equivalent of bilingualism at the group boundaries, leading to instability of border areas between different codes. Of course, if there is only one viable genetic code, in a sea of nonviables codes, evolution would have a more difficult job. But then we would probably appeal to the anthropic principle - we happen to live on a planet with a viable genetic code, out of billions that don't, because we must. We now know there are billions of planets out there. We will know shortly, which way the code is. We now have the technology to create alternate artificial genetic codes, and will be able to test the hypotheses that the standard code is unique optimised, or uniquely viable. But either way, it does not pose much of a problem for evolution. On Mon, Aug 05, 2013 at 08:19:42AM -0400, Roger Clough wrote: > Serious proof of why the theory of evolution is wrong. > > The irreducible complexity of DNA. See attached. > > > > Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] > See my Leibniz site at > http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough > > > The listing of the attachments is as following: > (1) The remarkable language of DNA.pdf (617.8 K) > > > Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] > See my Leibniz site at > http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
