Susan B wrote:
>
> At 08:24 AM 1/17/00 -0800, you wrote:
> >Arthur Chadwick quoting from:
> >From "Chance and Necessity" by Jaques Monod:
> >
> >".... The development of the
> >metabolic system, which, as the primordial soup thinned, must have
> >"learned" to mobilize chemical potential and to synthesize the cellular
> >components, poses Herculean problems. So also does the emergence of
> >the selectively permeable membrane without which there can be no viable
> >cell. But the major problem is the origin of the genetic code and its
> >translation mechanism. Indeed, instead of a problem it ought rather
> >to be called a riddle.
> > The code is meaniningless unless translated. The modern cell's
> >translating machinery consists of at least fifty macromolecular components
> >WHICH ARE THEMSELVES CODED IN DNA: THE CODE CANNOT BE TRANSLATED
> >OTHERWISE THAN BY PRODUCTS OF TRANSLATION [emphasis original]. It is
> >the modern expression of omne vivum ex ovo [all life from eggs, or
> >idiomatically, what came first, the chicken or the egg?]. When
> >and how did this circle become closed? It is exceedingly difficult
> >to imagine."
>
> It's a very good thing that the world is not bounded by the limits of
> Monod's imagination!
Hello Susan,
Monod actually had a very fertile imagination. In fact, after the quote
Arthur sent, Monod offers two hypothesis as how the code might have
showed up in the first place and then dicusses these two hypothesis. (A
little bit like the way Darwin explains how the eye might have evolved
after saying that it seemed too difficult to imagine - I bet you know
the quote ...). Monod wrote this book in 1964, the RNA world was not
around yet, and yet he had some pretty good insights.
If you want the complete quote (including what stands for the "...")
I'll be happy to try and translate it from my edition (which is in
french).
Regards
Emmanuelle
>
> Susan
> --------
> Peace is not the absence of conflict--it is the presence of justice.
> --Martin Luther King, Jr.
> Please visit my website:
> http://www.telepath.com/susanb
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