| ▲ | XorNot 3 hours ago | |
> RNA is not capable of self replication. RNA by virtue of its biochemistry is only capable to be used as a template for replication RNA molecules which can synthesize others have been produced in a lab.[1,2] Your claim is not only totally unsupported, it's been experimentally disproven. Laboratory RNA production can be done with regular batch chemistry - no enzymes involved, so on a long enough time span heat and mixing would be able to polymerase candidates out of the primordial soup. RNA self-affinity is well documented, double-stranded RNA viruses exist[2] so stable conformational arrangements of RNA are not only experimentally proven but so viable they exist in todays much more enzymatically hostile world. The relative difficulty of the structure persisting is a point in favor it is as a replication medium, since if RNA could tightly bind RNA then templating new strands would inactivate it. [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1060786 | ||