things to think about

In which the author outlines the theory of the oceans being the starting points of basic chemistry, and the rise of so-called “replicators” (molecules capable of replicating themselves) through natural selection at the chemical level. According to Dawkins, DNA is the most successful of these replicators, and, over time, evolved ever-more elaborate protective shells for itself that became organic life forms.
Description added 8/10/07

[I should probably start by saying that I started making these notes a good few months ago and I’m catching up on the backlog, so in some cases I’m as baffled as the next person by what I meant at the time and will be indulging in some editing. That said, let’s press on…]

pp12-14: Re: tendency of atoms to fall into stable patterns, “survival of the stable”: I’m sure this runs counter to a lot of stuff I’ve heard about a general tendency in nature towards the exact opposite, that the natural order of things is to diffuse into chaos. I’m hesitating to use the word entropy here, because I’ve been led to understand that it’s a much-misused term and has a very specific thermodynamic definition, but it’s certainly the concept that’s looming large here. Why is there a tendency towards stable forms?

Note on review: The fact that I’m sat here, embodied in a system of highly organised atoms and molecules, typing on a plastic (dig those polymers) keyboard, surrounded by an environment built from manufactured materials and a larger ecosystem would seem to provide ample proof of the viability of stable forms…

p15: Replicators as described here would be familiar to anyone who’s fiddled around with Conway’s Life. I probably shouldn’t read too much into that though.

Note on review: Perhaps the parallel shouldn’t be dismissed totally; after all, we’re talking about very primitive biochemical reactions here, certainly (I would imagine) closer to the simple rules of Life than the complex organic reactions that occur in nature today.

p16: Signs here of the chip on Dawkin’s shoulder that’s come into such sharp relief in recent years as he’s become a Celebrity Atheist, as he gives this example of “faulty copying”:

I suppose the scholars of the Septuagint could at least be said to have started something big when they mistranslated the Hebrew word for ‘young woman’ into the Greek word for ‘virgin’

Overall notes: Where are these primitive molecules now? When did the oceans stop brewing up all these possible chemistries? If there is this tendency towards stability, why is there such a variety of survival machines today? Why didn’t one stable form occur and quickly become the norm? Is biology an inevitable upshot of chemistry?

Note on review: I suppose, by defintion, the successful replicators built themselves whales and kelp and monkeys and the rest to keep them around, and the unsucessful ones “died out,” or, more properly failed to continue to replicate. I’m not sure this explains why we don’t observe simple molecules binding themselves together whenever they get half the chance though.