Leslie Orgel's Reality Check

Leslie Orgel is a pioneer in Origin of Life research. In 2008, a colleague published a manuscript by Leslie entitled, "The Implausibility of Metabolic Cycles on the Prebiotic Earth". It is a useful reality check on Kaufmann's autocatalytic sets idea.

In summary, Leslie is not a fan. He sums up his paper with this:

[S]olutions offered by supporters of geneticist or metabolist scenarios that are dependent on “if pigs could fly” hypothetical chemistry are unlikely to help.

The bottom line for any theoretical system involving autocatalytic cycles is that they can't have chemically unrealistic assumptions. The paper also has a good discussion on actual autocatalytic cycles in biology such as the reverse citric acid cycle and the formose reaction.

Overall, an important paper for me to keep in mind.