Re: poly: Cosmological revolutions

From: <CurtAdams@aol.com>
Date: Thu Jul 16 1998 - 23:19:01 PDT

In a message dated 7/16/98 11:32:03 AM, rcs@cs.arizona.edu wrote:

>I would add one more data point to "we're in for a cosmological
>revolution": the existence of life.
>
>The most plausible model for the origin of life is that it requires
>10^100+ chemical trials for the right combination of circumstances
>to occur.

Oh, hardly the most plausible. That's based on the idea that a
complete self-replicator by chance assembles complete from
primordial soup. For a far more plausible hypothesis, look at
catalytic closure in Kaufmann's "Origins of Order".

>If the universe is a mere 20GY old, that isn't enough time.

Which is why we can be sure that the first replicator *didn't* spring
full-blown from the primordial soup.
Received on Fri Jul 17 06:22:13 1998

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