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henryteeare

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all it needs is a weak simple catalyst,

Catalysis lowers the activation barrier, sure, but you still have to contend with the thermodynamic equilibrium in the absence of the catalyst, in addition to subsequent degradation by light, etc.

ocean full or random stuff that we can't actually imagine today

We probably can't ever really know what was in the Earth's ocean before life, but quite a bit of research has been put into figuring out some plausible conditions and then testing the hypothesised pathways put forward by the leading theories under said conditions.

All this is to say, yes, clearly abiogenesis occurred, but there are major gaps in the leading theories that are interesting and testable. I don't think it's very useful to gloss over the details, even if in the end the best we can hope for is a plausible pathway given a specific set of assumed conditions.

(1) is correct, but I believe (2) is no longer assumed to be true (especially the part about random RNA in the ocean).

The major problem is concentration. Even if you invoke geological timescales and a favourable redox environment, concentrations of reactants would be rapidly diluted in the ocean. Since there are quite a few dehydration reactions in the synthesis of oligonucleotides (like RNA) and proteins, when diluted in the ocean, the plentiful water drives the equilibrium back towards the starting materials. Without some mechanism to accumulate the reactants to form the first R/DNA, it remains an open question how the process got started.

There used to be a homeostasis-first theory—to compete with the metabolism-first and oligonucleotide-first theories—but it hasn't gained a lot of traction as an independent theory.

I believe the author meant "old.class + old.study = 40" vs "new.class + new.study = 27" (where new.study = 14). It took me a re-read to come to that conclusion.

AirPods Max 6 years ago

The new iPhone is the 12, just fyi.

Even though they were not as recent, I believe your argument would be more compelling if you used Apple's more similar products, e.g. AirPods Pro, or perhaps the latest watch.