v G-198
Va
COMMENTARII

Vou. IV N. 5

 

 

 

PLENARY SESSION
ON

THE ORIGIN AND EARLY EVOLUTION
OF LIPE (Part D

—a>

REFLECTION ON SCIENCE AT THE DAWN
OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM (Part IJ)

oar

ROUND TABLE ON THE PROBLEMS
OF THE ORIGIN OF LIFE (Round Table)

22-26 October 1996

Round Table Covg ena
Professor Joshua(Lederberg

The Rockefeller University
New York, N Y 10021-6399

EX AEDIBVS ACADEMICIS IN CIVITATE VATICANA
MCMXCVII
STRUCTURE OF THE ROUND TABLE Vol. IV -5

 

dire ce texte? Le texte de la création ne veut pas dire qu’il y

a ,
aussi c’est que Dieu est créateur.
Alors, la question c’est que je pen

echetique que théologique, c’est qu’au
ts pédagogiques il y a un gros effort a faire

ESCHENMOSER (Chairman)

 

Now, in order not to create a rather rare situation that the
Chairman is the major contributor to the discussion, I would like
to go on now and ask Dr. Joshua Lederberg for his statement.

LEDERBERG

I was originally going to focus on some questions about the
early biochemical origin of life and I'll come to that in a moment,
but if you permit me I would also preface with a remark in the
spirit of the present discussion.

If I may go beyond theology, if you permit me to use that
expression, there’s an intrinsic paradox and I don’t think it is
readily resolved. Most of us here who are working scientists
analyse the human body, analyse mechanism, give the most
materialistic and mechanistic views that we are able to do in our
examination of human beings, and we realize which is the
flyspeck in the cosmos. But we also don’t behave that way. We
behave as human beings, we’ve a humanistic perspective, we've

73

 
  
    
  
Vol. IV - 5 COMMENTARIT

 

a respect for the dignity of human individuals which does not
derive in any way from our scientific judgment.

So, whether it’s a question of theological terms or not there’s
in fact a paradox that we have to resolve within ourselves, and I
don’t think that they are reconciled, I think they represent
different facets of our own personality, but perhaps we'll have
more argument about that.

What I wanted to turn to is another part of our discussion,
and then has to do with the gap between the production of
carbene-2} chains, namely organic molecules, and the RNA
world, which has been a very large part of our discussion in the
last several days. In my view a great deal of detail about that has
been swept under the rég-and we've given the impression that all
the problems are solved, when in fact here much of that still
remains to be done. There’s a vast gap and that gap will remain
until this transition can be reconstructed in the laboratory. Until
that time this is a metaphysical position, not a scientific
demonstration.

Now, I personally have now a great confidence that this
transition will be consummated, but I do not regard if as a
scientific demonstration, it’s my way of life.

Above all, in fact, there are very few scientific facts that stand
without constant revision, and that principle applies here as well.
I don’t know what we'll then find about the terms of the ...(?)
equation, and what the probabilities are of the emergence of life
one place or another, I think these are wild conjectures that we
just grasp over the years, they are not just demonstrable from a
deterministic standpoint.

I personally agree that'll be deterministically controlled, but
that’s because of the person that I am, not a consequence of
demonstration.

The most important role, after all, of a scientific assertion is
as a working hypothesis, the definition of a research programme
that one hopes will be fruitful, and I’ve no doubt it is the best
choice here to behave as if there were a queet (?) mechanistic
pathway from the inorganic to the organic world, I think it’s our

only option at this stage. rhoar

74

DRAKE
STRUCTURE OF THE ROUND TABLE Vol. IV - 5

 

We've seen enormous progress in the last 168 years, I’m
dating this back to the synthesis of urea by Weler (?), and this
notion of the accessibility of the organic to analysis has had one
fruitful victory after another. Why should we stop now at this
stage, even if there’s a ponderable gap that we don’t know
exactly how to fill. It we did stand still for the next 168 years,
then perhaps it would be legitimate to abandon that working
hypothesis of chemical evolution, but I’m quite certain that
something is going to happen. We'll see things in 168 weeks,
which will continue to alter and expand our perspective in other
directions.

But as to the details of the research programme, this is an
appeal to my colleagues, I really feel that they are too faddishly
involved with a sort of (?) RNA as a primordial biopolymer that
happens to be the one that we’ve understood the best in most
recent history. We know that RNA will.—ean fella), can make
enzymatic activity, and so on and so forth, what seems to me a
very large leap from the organic to RNA as the specific biotic
polymer.

Where is the nucleotide pool (free of fatal contaminants
that would enable such a synthesis?

The first biotic polymer does not have to be very fast, does
not have to be very efficient, does not have to have a perfect
structure. It’s really enough a beginning, it’s enough that we have
sufficiency (?) of the rudiments of self-replicability in the
catalytic activity so that it begins the pathway of the evolutionary
cumulation of biological potency.

That may pose some difficulties, that’s the very first steps that
may be so feeble in the biotic capability. They may have turn
over times of years or decades that would still be consistent with
the first step and hard to replicate in the laboratory. Perhaps they
will, perhaps not.

But my plea is: please, look for other intermediary polymers
for more readily available pools.

But the philosophical side of this argument is what science
really consists of. It should never be dogmatic assertion, ifshould
be: these are the fruitful paths for further inquiry. t

75

Wahler