Alex,
Your reference to Shapiro is lifted from page 5 of "The Origin of Life: Five Questions Worth Asking:, Endnotes 3, 4, and 5 -- Scientific American, June 2007. ("A Simpler Origin for Life")
Shapiro's article is available at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-simpler-origin-for-life/
The
article’s heading explains the brochure’s selective quotes:
“The sudden appearance of a large-self-copying
molecule such as RNA was exceedingly improbable.
Energy-driven networks of
small molecules afford better odds as the initiators of life.” (underlining mine)
Excerpts from that article:
DNA, RNA, proteins and other elaborate large molecules must
then be set aside as participants in the origin of life. … Fortunately, an
alternative group of theories that can employ these materials has existed for
decades. The theories employ a thermodynamic rather than a genetic definition
of life …
One assumption of the small-molecule approach is that
coupled reactions and primitive catalysts sufficient to get life started exist
in nature. ... The small molecule approach to the origin of life makes several
demands upon nature (a compartment, an external energy supply, a driver
reaction coupled to that supply, and the existence of a chemical network that
contains that reaction). These requirements are general in nature, however, and
are immensely more probable than the elaborate multi-step pathways needed to
form a molecule that can function as a replicator. …
If the general small-molecule paradigm were confirmed, then
our expectations of the place of life in the universe would change. … The
small-molecule alternative is in harmony with the views of biologist Stuart
Kauffman: “If this is all true, life is vastly more probable than we have
supposed. Not only are we at home in the universe, but we are far more likely
to share it with unknown companions.”
