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To: Southack
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16 posted on 03/05/2002 1:14:27 PM PST by Southack
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To: Southack
From the last thread:
It is DATA "self-forming", not chemicals that are in question. Whether the data that we are looking for is the first sentence of Hamlet or the first gene in DNA, Watson's math applies equally.

Except,
1. Nobody suggests that DNA emerged fully formed - it was proceded by an age of RNA-based chemistry.
2. Pre-RNA molecules/structures would still have to be self-replicating, thus introducing a variety of selection pressures that would accelerate the rate of information retention for re-use in a subsequent iteration.
3. How much "data" is contained in a self-replicating compound? Is it more or less than in a sentence of Hamlet? Your Hamlet string has behind it a whole language, with idiom and abstract meaning, embeded in a complex cultural context. The compound only needs to specify how to make a copy of itself.

17 posted on 03/05/2002 1:17:05 PM PST by cracker
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