Can anyone explain this Bioloy Theory??!!!!!?

Question

Can someone explain the Clay Crystal Theory (a.k.a. the Clay Theory) to me?
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The theory was made by Graham Cairns-Smith
I tried looking it up on the internet, but the explanations used many scientific words that I couldn't understand :(

Answer 1

Keep in mind that, as with any science topic, when we avoid scientific words, the explanation has to be longer.

For example, I can't take for granted that you know what words like 'replication', 'inheritance', 'crystal', or 'clay' really mean ... so I have to explain each of these terms.

One of the biggest questions in the origins of life is the origin of *replication with inheritance* ... this is where something copies itself, but in a way that properties get *inherited* by the copies.

For example, a forest fire can "reproduce" itself (split into two smaller forest fires that then grow), but not with *inheritance* ... the two resulting fires are not "copies" of the parent fire. Their properties are completely determined by the type of vegetation they are burning, the wind factors, etc. ... they did not *inherit* any of the properties of the parent fire.

A crystal, on the other hand, is an interesting example of *non-living* replication-with-inheritance. For example, a snowflake is a crystal. A tiny geometric pattern of a few water molecules, replicates itself over and over during a rapid freezing process to produce an entire snowflake crystal.

In other words, in a crystal, the structure is *replicated with inheritance*. Imagine a litle structure of 5 legos (red-red-blue-red-white in a certain geometric structure), but then that same pattern (r-r-b-r-w) is reproduced over and over (r-r-b-r-w-r-r-b-r-w- ...) until you have a huge block of legos. That's all a snowflake is ... or any crystal.

So a snowflake (or any crystal) is an example of non-living replication with inheritance ... in this case replication of a tiny geometric pattern. (Incidentally, those people who say that complexity cannot arise from simple non-life, have never looked at the incredible complexity a snowflake under a microscope ... all constructed from the simple geometric shape of the water molecule.)

However, while a crystal is *itself* a result of replication of a small geometric pattern ... the crystal *itself* cannot replicate ... a snowflake cannot make another identical snowflake. This is because the tiny geometric structure is trapped in the crystal.

In other words, there is no way to "export the information" ... produce another crystal with the same information.

This is where clays come in. A clay is a really interesting substance consisting of large flat particles suspended in water that sheer (break along a certain plane) and then reconnect.

If clay itself consists of crystals (such as silicates ... the largest class of rock minerals ... named because they all contain the element silicon) ... and those crystals sheer (break) in certain ways, then this exposes a face with the underlying structures, which allows the crystals to "export their information" and form identical crystals.

So clay crystals are a form of non-living replication with inheritance, where the information is exported and replicated in new crystals.

The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a way for this type of non-living replication to make the leap to the system of replication that in all life on earth ... namely inheritance based on RNA and DNA, which are molecules based on carbon, not silicon, and which are not themselves crystals. (Aside: carbon and silicon have a lot of similar properties ... seeing as how they are in the same column in the periodic table of elements.)

However, Cairns-Smith has proposed mechanisms by which one carrier of information (say the silicon-based crystals) can produce a second carrier of information (say carbon-based RNA) which eventually replaces it. This is where the controversy comes in ... but I think Cairns-Smith may be on to more than he's given credit for.

(The illustrations on this page give a nice overview of how that transfer from one system of inheritance ... what's they call the 'genetic substrate' ... to another.)
http://originoflife.net/takeover/index.php

There are certainly a lot of people taking clay crystal theory seriously ... and it may produce something interesting.

Answer 2

All existence varieties in the international Earth function in accordance to the genetic application hardwired in the cells. it is outstanding and previous the bounds of human strategies to conceive, how the DNA would desire to be synthesized with a skill to conform the greater complicated lifeforms. The creation of the elementary genetic code is the end results of smart clothier. as quickly as the technique of cellular multiplication began, it went on evolving by using fact of quite a few components which led to random variations in the elementary genetic code. The human strategies additionally can not conceive...who designed the clothier?