Creation Moment 9/15/2024 - CMI responds to A.E. from Egypt

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, .... 2 Timothy 2:15

"A.E. from Egypt sent in quite a lot of requests to address some recent papers claiming to solve the intractable problems of chemical evolution (aka abiogenesis). Most of them are addressed on our website already. Despite this, he sent in more papers. So we thought it was a good place to take apart some representative papers, as well as deal with what we think is the real issue.
He writes:

"There is a recent study titled RNA-catalyzed evolution of catalytic RNA which published in (PNAS) on March 4, 2024, Which says “RNA polymerase ribozyme that was obtained by directed evolution can propagate a functional RNA through repeated rounds of replication and selection, thereby enabling Darwinian evolution. Earlier versions of the polymerase did not have sufficient copying fidelity to propagate functional information, but a new variant with improved fidelity can replicate the hammerhead ribozyme through reciprocal synthesis of both the hammerhead and its complement, with the products then being selected for RNA-cleavage activity . Two evolutionary lines were carried out in parallel, using either the prior low-fidelity or the newer high-fidelity polymerase, Did this study really provide good evidence that supports the RNA world hypothesis?"

CMI’s Shaun Doyle responds
Dear A.,
Thanks for writing in.
I have to be frank: do you even understand the abstracts of these PNAS articles that are giving you so much grief? Take the first sentence of the abstract you quote from in this comment:
An RNA polymerase ribozyme that was obtained by directed evolution can propagate a functional RNA through repeated rounds of replication and selection, thereby enabling Darwinian evolution.

First, how did they obtain the RNA polymerase ribozyme? “Directed evolution”. 

Q: Does this mean it evolved via natural mechanisms? 

A: It means the opposite; it was engineered. 

It’s a protein engineering method that generates mutants from which the researchers select the mutants that best fit what they’re looking for, replicate those, subject them to more rounds of mutagenesis and selection, until they find what they’re looking for. 

Q: Why does this matter? 

A: It shows that the RNA polymerase ribozyme was engineered to replicate a functional ribozyme. All this paper shows is that this is the best example they’ve managed to engineer so far. An interesting exercise in organic chemical engineering, to be sure.
But relevant to chemical evolution? Not at all. For it to be relevant, it has to be assumed that this thing could plausibly arise solely via mindless causes. But there’s no reason for us to assume that. In fact, the very difficulty of generating it is evidence against mindless causes.

Second, have they actually shown RNA self-replication? No. The RNA polymerase ribozyme facilitated the replication of a different ribozyme. As the commentary states:

"Here, a twofold change in the error rate of the RNA polymerase ribozyme led to the first RNA-catalyzed ribozyme replication and evolution cycle. This new functionality is heading toward something profound: RNA self-replication. If the RNA polymerase ribozyme could complete a full replication cycle of not only the hammerhead ribozyme, but of its own sequence, the system will meet a widely accepted definition of life as a “self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution”."

This is not a self-replicating RNA system. 

Third, why think Darwinian evolution from such a system could eventually produce a free-living cell? A free-living cell is clearly the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). That’s the target they’re aiming at. These studies have to show natural causes plausibly suffice to generate the LUCA from abiotic materials in the timeframe and conditions they posit. 

However, the system the paper investigates is solely RNA. 

Q: What sort of mutations could allow it to bring in entirely different classes of biomolecules, such as polysaccharides, DNA, lipids, and proteins, to create a much more complex system? 

---And this assumes that such biomolecules could themselves develop naturalistically in the same environments as the RNA system. But evolving from an RNA system to a multi-biomolecule cellular system for which DNA, not RNA, is the prime information storage molecule, is a black box that dwarfs anything that supposedly evolved since the LUCA.

There is no reason to think this study has any relevance to how life supposedly arose from abiotic materials without intelligent input. 

It’s an engineered system. 

It still can’t self-replicate." 

CMI