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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38487 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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There is a section in Dawkins' "The Ancestors Tale" which makes a 'flipped' version of this argument. Perhaps the process starts with a chemical that has this duplication-like property, and then it turns into competition for what spreads/duplicates best:

After that digression on catalysis and enzymes, we now turn from ordinary catalysis to the special case of autocatalysis, some version of which probably played a key role in the origin of life. Think back to our hypothetical example of molecules A and B combining to make Z under the influence of the enzyme abzase. What if Z itself is its own abzase? I mean, what if the Z molecule happens to have just the right shape and chemical properties to seize one A and one B, bring them together in the correct orientation, and combine them to make a new Z, just like itself? In our previous example we could say that the amount of abzase in the solution would influence the amount of Z produced. But now, if Z actually is one and the same molecule as abzase, we need only a single molecule of Z to seed a chain reaction. The first Z grabs As and Bs and combines them to make more Zs. Then these new Zs grab more As and Bs to make still more Zs and so on. This is autocatalysis. Under the right conditions the population of Z molecules will grow exponentially - explosively. This is the kind of thing that sounds promising as an ingredient for the origin of life.

pg 571 of the hardback edition

Dawkins' goes on to discuss a real example of a (relatively) simple 'abzase', an amino adenosine triacid ester (AATE), that has this property. In that case, 'A' is amino adenosine and 'B' is a pentafluorophenyl ester.

edit: this is the same as the middle bullet point from recovering_rationaleist's comment

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