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First, the majority of the biomass of the earth is water, not organic molecules, and big fraction of what's left is lipids and carbohydrates, not nucleic or ami

First, the majority of the biomass of the earth is water, not organic molecules, and big fraction of what's left is lipids and carbohydrates, not nucleic or amino acids. So a simple multiplication of biomass by Avogadro's number is likely off by at least an order of magnitude. Second, yes, today's world has an enormous amount of amino acids and nucleic acids, but that is after billions of years of enzyme-catalyzed synthesis inside trillions of living cells. The prevalence of amino acids/nucleic acids prior to abiogenesis would have been orders of magnitude lower in a world where those enzyme pathways didn't exist yet and biologic molecules with catalytic activity were still in the process of being bootstrapped. Third, does your back of the envelope calculation account for the very short half life of RNA? That is really the biggest issue. If RNA didn't decay, then forget about hundred base sequences; the primordial earth might have been filled with million base sequences.

lisper 4y ago
> the majority of the biomass of the earth is water The figure I cited is the carbon biomass. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-biomass-of-earth-in-one-graphic/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-biomass-of-earth-in... > that is after billions of years of enzyme-catalyzed synthesis inside trillions of living cells Doesn't matter. What matters is the size of the search space that could be explored by the chemistry, and if even a single replicator exists in that search space. The extent to which that first replicator resembles present-day life is irrelevant. The only reason to refer to that at all is to get some idea of what the information content of a minimal replicator is. > Third, does your back of the envelope calculation account for the very short half life of RNA? Again, it doesn't matter. As long as the half-life of the replicator is more than the time it takes it to produce >2 offspring, that's enough to get the ball rolling.

lisper 4y ago

> the majority of the biomass of the earth is water The figure I cited is the carbon biomass. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-biomass-of-earth-in-one-graphic/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-biomass-of-earth-in... > that is after billions of years of enzyme-catalyzed synthesis inside trillions of living cells Doesn't matter. What matters is the size of the search space that could be explored by the chemistry, and if even a single replicator exists in that search space. The extent to which that first replicator resembles present-day life is irrelevant. The only reason to refer to that at all is to get some idea of what the information content of a minimal replicator is. > Third, does your back of the envelope calculation account for the very short half life of RNA? Again, it doesn't matter. As long as the half-life of the replicator is more than the time it takes it to produce >2 offspring, that's enough to get the ball rolling.