Re: OoL ? out at first base?

On 9/12/2024 9:29 pm, aph@littlepinkcloud.invalid wrote:

MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/12/2024 8:11 pm, jillery wrote:

On Mon, 9 Dec 2024 16:54:56 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
>

We need prebiotic formation and supply of nucleotides for RNA world, and
other models at some stage. The scope of the problem of the supply of
these precursors is prone to underestimation.
>
Nucleotides are chemically challenging in terms of the prebiotic
synthesis and assembly of their three constituents of nitrogenous base,
sugar and phosphate group.
>
Harder again are the requirements for supply of these building blocks.
You need (eventually) all canonical bases in sufficient concentration,
purity, chirality, activation, distribution, location, etc.
>
But the greatest problem I think is this: time. How long must you
maintain the supply described above in order to assemble a
self-replicating RNA strand? And even if you managed that, how much more
time is needed before reaching a protocell capable of self-synthesising
nucleotides? One million years? One hundred million years?
>
A hypothised little warm pond with wetting/drying cycles (say) must
provide a far-from-equilibrium system...for a million years...or
hundreds of millions of years. You can?t pause the process, because any
developing polymers will fall apart and reset the clock.
>
What are the chances of that kind of geological and environmental
stability and continuity?
>
Therefore, the formation of an autonomous protocell naturalistically has
vanishingly small probability.

>
There were many warm little ponds, spread throughout the young Earth,
all multiplying that probability.  Try to keep that in mind.

>
Of course, but that doesn't solve the problem of time:
>
     10 million ponds x 10 years != 1 pond x 100 million years

 x ~ 100 quintillion Earthlike planets around Sunlike stars.
 Andrew.
 

This is an interesting question. If it were problem that could be solved by enough monkeys, typewriters and time, then yes.
The formation of a protocell is not a single chance event (or small number of events) with extremely low probability. Rather, it is a connected sequence of many events. This requires a supply of building blocks that is stable and continuous over millions of years. My contention is this is geologically and environmentally a physical impossibility. Sooner or later, a drought, flood, earthquake, meteorite impact etc will reset the process a short way into the timeline required. No amount of "suitable" planetary systems can solve this.
To recap: A hypothised little warm pond with wetting/drying cycles (say) must sustain a far-from-equilibrium system for millions of years. You can’t pause the process, because any developing polymers will fall apart and reset the clock.
This will fail as described on 100 quintillion Earthlike planets around Sunlike stars.