Re: Hydrogen Cyanide and the Origin

A correction concerning your characterization of my theory, plus some 
quibbles regarding the language you use in describing your own theory:

> TH
> There seems to me to be problems with having each of the following develop
> separately; then somehow magically come together - aa, nucleic acids, lipid
> production, etc.

But in my theory they DON'T develop separately.  Pre-RNA world lipid 
organisms "invent" nucleic acids.  Then later, RNA world organisms produce
amino acids and "invent" proteins.  No magic.  Just ordinary garden-variety
natural selection pushed back to an earlier era than most people think is
possible.  The not-yet-understood "magic" is in the origin of pre-RNA 
world lipid organisms that can evolve under natural selection without 
the benefit of nucleic acids.  (Plus, I need to come up with credible
"just-so stories" for why evolution would have taken this particular path.)
My theory has lots of problems, but not the one you mention.

> TH
> I think more likely it was some symbiosis of all these under similar
> circumstances. 

I've noticed that you use the word "symbiosis" loosely.  Properly,
you should only speak of a symbiosis between tRNAs and amino acids if
you believe that both are, in some sense, alive.  I'll concede the
point for tRNAs, but if you are suggesting that amino acids were somehow
alive, then your theory is MUCH more interesting (if somewhat less 
credible).  It IS conceivable that you could have an evolving "species"
consisting of all the amino acids that reproduce themselves by some kind
of autocatalytic cycle.  Then the species consisting of all such living aas 
might co-evolve with tRNAs, by adding the arginine trait, for example, and
extinguishing the ornithine.  That would INDEED be interesting.  But I don't 
think that is what you are saying.  So, I repeat, you really shouldn't
use the word symbiosis.

But, I notice, you seem to assign biological attributes to non-living
entities in other cases, too.

> TH
> "Feed and "breed" (or whatever your def. of life is) is an 
> adaptive respone to what?

> TH
> Let's go one step further. If life was such an advantage
> why didn't salt, gold, or water 'feed and breed'?
> I'm not being facetious. ...

> TH (from a different thread)
> That means when the first proto tRNA hooked up to
> the first Amino Acid - there was a benefit for both THEN, not
> a million years later. And when two Amino Acids formed a peptide
> bond it was a benefit to those amino acids THEN, not a million years
> later and when RNA folded into a tRNA shape it was a benefit to
> that RNA strand THEN, not a million years later.

No biologist (that I am aware of) claims that life is an "advantage",
nor that an inanimate glob of organic chemicals evolved to the
living state in order to reap those advantages.  An atom, molecule,
or rock does not have a "will to survive".  It is a category
error to even talk of non-living things having interests.  Purists
might claim that it is a category error to even talk of non-human things
having interests, but evolutionists have (justifiably) expanded the
concept to include all living things.  Living things, because they
have evolved under natural selection, BEHAVE AS IF they had interests -
specifically, they seem to have an interest in extending and 
broadening their tree of descendents.
  
The word "selection" is sometimes applied to inanimate objects, but
this should not be seen as a evolution-causing process.  Living things
undergo r-selection (for ability to reproduce) and K-selection (for 
ability to survive so as to eventually reproduce).  All living things
are reasonably proficient at both. 

When you talk about an aa or a rock undergoing "selection" 
for survival, that is not meaningful in evolutionary terms.
Survival without reproduction is pretty useless.  
Yes, an aa that is good at surviving will indeed probably survive
and may become relatively more plentiful as a result.  But only
slightly.  The population of aas is continually replenished by
"spontaneous generation".  And THAT is the key difference between
the living and the non-living.  Inanimate objects can be spontaneously
generated; living things have to go thru the boring process of sex
to achieve reproduction.  (Well, some of them do, anyways.)  The
fact of reproduction creates a positive feedback loop.  Selected
characters can become fixed in a population ONLY IF the population
is amplified by reproduction and is not significantly diluted by 
spontaneous generation.

Again, if you have a theory that somehow justifies the use of final
causation language for inanimate objects, then you are onto something VERY
interesting.  But, I suspect that you are not proposing such a theory.
You are merely using language in a slightly sloppy way.  There are those who
claim that sloppy language breeds sloppy thinking - just in case those
spoil-sports happen to be right, you might consider revising the language
you use.  We would hate to lose you to poetry.bio.evolution  ;-)