Minimal Replication Fidelity: Another Problem for the RNA World Hypothesis

Intelligent Design the Future

Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture

Science, Philosophy, Astronomy, Society & Culture, Life Sciences

4 • 993 Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2023

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The RNA world is proposed by some to explain how early life began before DNA. But is RNA capable of maintaining a life-friendly self-replication rate? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes back Dr. Jonathan McLatchie to discuss another headache for the RNA world scenario. Before a trial and error process like natural selection can even get started, self-replicating molecules must have a minimal accuracy rate to copy genetic material effectively. The required fidelity rate is estimated to be 2%. Any error rate higher than that results in error catastrophe for organisms. The average error rate in RNA copying is estimated to be around 17%, vastly higher than the estimated maximum error threshold for survival. McLatchie explains the implications of this for chemical evolutionary theories like the RNA world hypothesis. He also explains how a Bayesian approach to this evidence can provide us with the likeliest explanation for the origin of biological life. "The sorts of features that we observe in life are not particularly surprising if we suppose that a mind is involved," says McLatchie. But things like minimal self-replication fidelity are wildly surprising on a naturalistic hypothesis.

Source

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I. Welcome to ID the Future. I'm your host Andrew McDermott. Today I'm
0:16.7	pleased to welcome back Dr. Jonathan McClatchy, fellow and resident biologist
0:20.9	at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.
0:24.0	Jonathan was previously an assistant professor at Sadler College in Boston
0:28.0	where he lectured biology for four years.
0:31.0	He holds a bachelor's degree in forensic biology, a master's degree in
0:34.9	evolutionary biology, a second master's degree in medical and molecular bioscience,
0:39.7	and a PhD in evolutionary biology.
0:43.0	His research interests include the scientific evidence of design and nature,
0:47.0	arguments for the existence of God,
0:49.0	and New Testament scholarship.
0:51.0	Jonathan is also founder and director of Talk About Doubts.com. Jonathan, welcome back.
0:56.7	Great to be here. Thanks for having me on. It's been a long time.
1:00.0	Yeah, well we're enjoying the interaction here and we're in person folks. This isn't remote, which is a nice refreshing change.
1:08.0	At evolutionnews.org, our flagship site for news and commentary on evolution and intelligent design,
1:15.0	you'll find a host of articles about the difficulties inherent in the popular RNA world scenario that's envisioned for primitive life. Now Jonathan you
1:24.1	write there recently about another key problem for the RNA world hypothesis
1:28.6	the problem of minimal self-replication fidelity. You say it poses a conundrum for materialists, so I thought
1:36.0	we could delve into that a bit. First, let's start with the basics, as we normally do. What
1:40.5	is the RNA world and why has it become so popular among origin of life theorists?
1:45.6	So the RNA world is a scenario envisioned by origins of life researchers.
1:50.6	So try to circumvent one of the key problems in explaining the modern DNA protein system, right?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.