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posted 10. February 2006 04:50
Sources:
Commentary
DI CSC
On the Origins of Life
David Berlinski
February 2006
Paragraph's 43, 45 (approx) under subsection title 'The Central Dogma':
From these considerations a familiar figure now emerges: the figure of a chicken and its egg. Replication, transcription^, and translation are all under the control of various enzymes. But enzymes are proteins, and these particular proteins are specified by the cell’s nucleic acids^. DNA^ requires the enzymes^ in order to undertake the work of replication, transcription, and translation; the enzymes require DNA in order to initiate it. The nucleic acids and the proteins are thus profoundly coordinated, each depending upon the other. Without amino-acyl-tRNA synthetase, there is no translation from RNA; but without DNA, there is no synthesis of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase.
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On the level of intuition and experience, these facts suggest nothing more mysterious than the longstanding truism that life comes only from life. Omnia viva ex vivo, as Latin writers said. It is only when they are embedded in various theories about the origins of life that the facts engender a paradox, or at least a question: in the receding molecular spiral, which came first—the chicken in the form of DNA, or its egg in the form of various proteins? And if neither came first, how could life have begun?
[Emphases added by ISCID News Editor]
[Link-underlined terms with ^ indicate linked entry in ISCID Encyclopedia of Science and Philosophy as added by ISCID News Editor]
Read the full article at: Commentary and DI CSC
[ 10. February 2006, 08:34: Message edited by: ISCID News Editor ]
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