... although 'activated' ribonucleotide molecules (the building blocks of RNA) can polymerize without enzymes, no plausible route had been found by which the ribonucleotides could have formed. Now a team from the University of Manchester has found such a route. They also show that a widely held assumption about ribonucleotide synthesis — that the molecules formed from pre-existing sugar molecules and RNA bases — isn't necessary for RNA to have formed on prebiotic Earth.We're now at a point where the existence of a prebiotic RNA World can be explained. See the NYT also.
Science is progress. The questions and ignorance that religion is dependent upon to remain in place will continue to be eroded by its inexorable march towards knowledge and understanding. If ever people finally decide to give up on superstition, the coup de grâce to religion will come not from some violent revolution, but in a lab, where it will finally be shown how to take simple prebiotic molecules and construct a protocell capable of evolution. There will still be religious people, just as today there are still Amish despite the prevalence of technology. But they will be fundamentally isolated from the larger world.
