title: Chemistry and the missing era of evolution.
abstract: The Darwinian evolution of life on earth depends utterly on complex molecular machinery, which, it seems, could only have arisen through a Darwinian evolution. The "RNA world" idea reduces this paradox, but requires a geochemically implausible supply of RNA monomers. A pre-RNA era of natural selection is implied. I suggest that originally this was based on inorganic materials that came to replicate permutations with specific (e.g. catalytic) effects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK. grahamcs@chem.gla.ac.uk
authors.forename: A Graham
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Cairns-Smith
mesh_terms: D002384:Catalysis; D019418:Evolution, Chemical; D008956:Models, Chemical; D000069497:Origin of Life; D012313:RNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D012641:Selection, Genetic
chemical_list: D012313:RNA