Major issues
Applicants must provide
A. a well-conceived, detailed hypothetical mechanism explaining
how the rise of genetic instructions sufficient to give rise to
life as defined in "Definitions" below might have occurred in Nature
by natural processes, and an
B. empirical correlation to the real world of biochemistry and
molecular biology - not just mathematical or computer models - of
how the prescriptive information characteristic of all known
living organisms might have arisen.
The mechanism must address four topics:
- The simplest known genome's apparent anticipation and directing of
future events toward biological ends, both metabolic and structural;
- The ability of the genome to convey instructions, deliver orders, and
actually produce the needed biological end-products;
- The indirectness of recipe-like biological "linguistic" message code -
the gap between genotypic prescriptive information (instruction) and
phenotypic expression. How did the first genetic instruction arise in
its coded format prior to phenotypic realization of progeny from which
the environment could select? If a protobiont's genetic code and
phenotype were one and the same, how did such a simple system
self-organize to meet the nine minimum conditions of "life" enumerated
below under "Definitions"? How did stellar energy, the four known forces
of physics (strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetic force, and
gravity), and natural processes produce initial prescriptive
information (instruction/recipe) using direct or indirect code?
- The bizarre concentration of singlehanded optical isomers (homochirality
of enantiomers) in living things - how did a relatively pure population
of left-handed amino acids or right-handed sugars arise out of a chemical
environment wherein reactions ordinarily give rise to roughly equal
numbers of both right- and left-handed optical isomers?