I believe that it is assumed that RNA enzymes made DNA at some point in time. One can exist without the other because evidence suggests there was a time when RNA existed as both phenotype and genotype. Gerald Joyce expanded on this. The real question is what was before the RNA world? Where did RNA come from? Was there a pre-RNA as some scientists suspect?


>>You said: So both the DNA and proteins must have been functional from the beginning in order for evolution to start.
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>Also that one can't exist without the other. RNA/DNA has codes that result in protein production, but without protein, that is catalyst, RNA/DNA is meaningless/useless.
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>>This is what I don't think is true. I think DNA/RNA is product of evolution, not a starting point. The DNA, and sexual replication in general, is merely a strategy at replicating, and a pretty damned good one for practical and theoretical reasons. I think that replicators could be built much more primitavely than this scheme. You ask "how?"
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>Of course DNA/RNA is not the starting point. But, then how far do we go back for the absolute starting point? I'm just trying to give you diehard evolutionist a head start. :)
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>But what I want to know is, how did things that are dependent on other thing for its existance come to exist without the things that make it possible to exist in the first place?
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>Did the evolution process some how create both the RNA/DNA and by some miracle create the needed proteins? If so that's some miracle. Isn't that like saying a tornado will blow through a junk yard and build a perfectly functioning car and will fill it up with refined gas?
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>I guess anything's possible....
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>>You might take this as brushing off the question, but think of a computer virus. It replicates, but without the DNA/RNA bio-chemistry scheme you described.
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>Huh? Are you saying that a computer "virus" is the same as a flu virus?
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>A computer virus is not biological virus, in fact, it's not a virus at all. We just call it a "virus" because can make you're computer "sick". Its a computer program. So you can't compare it with a virus that may exist in you body.
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>But I'm sure you already knew that.
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>>I don't know how the first replicators would have worked... hell, from time to time I wonder if they landed on Earth as aliens! The point is this area is what is open to exploration by scientists and theorists. Exploration of ideas is what science, or being a live, thinking being, is all about.
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>Well, who to say that they didn't come from alien source. :)
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>>And, for what its worth, I've been excessively condescending towards you, so I should apoligize before you do! Sorry.
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>No need to apologize. I enjoyed the exchange.