Description
Description of the Prize
“The Origin-of-Life Prize” ® (hereafter called “the Prize”) will be awarded for proposing a highly plausible natural-process mechanism for the spontaneous rise of genetic instructions in nature sufficient to give rise to life. The explanation must be consistent with empirical biochemical, kinetic, and thermodynamic concepts as further delineated herein, and be published in a well-respected, peer-reviewed science journal(s).
Progress in life-origin research has been greatly impeded by a few key nagging problems. Biochemical constraints render many appealing theoretical models non productive. These biochemical constraints have received the most attention in scientific literature. Self-replication has been another subject of considerable research, although successes in this area have usually come from very artificial rather than natural-selection models. But perhaps the most daunting of all life-origin problems is elucidating a natural mechanism for “self-organization.” Self-ordering is often confused with bona fide organization. A crucial paper providing valuable background information in this area is found at the following link:
Self-organization vs.Self-ordering in life-origin models
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Complexity, “the edge of chaos,” hypercycles, Markov processes, fractals, complex adaptive systems, genetic algorithms, and directed evolution have all attracted great interest. A valuable summary of progress in these areas is summarized in another key review paper:
The capabilities of chaos and complexity Capabilities P
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It is important to differentiate between constraints and controls:
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Gene emergence relates specifically to sequence complexity, material symbol systems, decision nodes, logic gates and configurable switch-settings. The following papers provide important background information for all of these issues:
Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information
Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins
The biosemiosis of prescriptive information O
Chance and Necessity do not explain the origin of life Explain P
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The latest peer-reviewed anthology of scientific papers that is directly relevant to Origin-of-life Prize questions and submissions is The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control, David L. Abel, Editor, December, 2011, LongView Press Academic, New York, N.Y.
The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control First P
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Is your model scientifically plausible? To test this, the scientific method requires that you calculate a Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM, Xi), and that you apply the Universal Plausbililty Principle to your model. The probabilities incorporated into your UPM must be calculated correctly, factoring the probabilities of: 1) getting only homochiral monomers, 2) only peptide bonds (half the bonds that normally form between amino acids), 3) only biologically usable amino acids (20 out of well over 80 that were probably common in a prebiotic environment), 4) getting activated monomers that can polymerize, 5) getting a family member of each protein catalyst out of sequence space, 6) getting all needed components produced and assembled at the same place and in the correct reaction order through time, etc. All of these factors together still do not measure the probability of their organization into an integrated holistic scheme. But if the UPM for your model is less than 1, your model is definitively falsified by the Universal Plausibility Principle applicable to all hypotheses, models, theories and scenarios in all fields of science.
The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) and Principle (UPP)
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The overall prevalence of polyamino acid sequences performing a specific function by any domain-sized fold is only one in 10^77. Models must take this probability into consideration.
Estimating the prevalence of Protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds
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Winning The Origin of Life Prize would entail falsifying two null hypotheses:
The Cybernetic Cut – Progressing from description to prescription in systems theory
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The GS Principle or The Genetic Selection Principle
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Brief summaries of these two null hypotheses can be found as Scirus SciTopic Pages:
The Genetic Selection (GS)Principle
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Brief summaries of The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness can be found as a Scirus SciTopic Page:
The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness
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Also of interest are two other short summaries:
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The one-time Prize will be paid to the winner(s) as a twenty-year annuity in hopes of discouraging theorists’ immediate retirement from productive careers. The annuity consists of $50,000.00 (U.S.) per year for twenty consecutive years, totalling one million dollars in payments.
Formal application by submitters is required to win. Submitters must expressly consent to abide by all terms and conditions of the Prize before judging of their paper(s) can begin.
The ability of the Foundation to underwrite these payments and to administer the Project is monitored by the well-known accounting firm of Young, Brophy & Duncan, PC, Certified Public Accountants. The source of funds, not only for the Prize itself, but for the yearly operating expenses of the Foundation over the last decade, originates from outside of the Foundation’s books. The funds are provided as needed by a multi-millionaire anonymous donor. The donor is understanably concerned about family members being kidnapped for ransom, and similar problems, if the donor’s finances are made public. The legal documents with this multi-millionaire are air-tight, and the accountants of the Foundation and Donor make sure the Prize annuity is guaranteed at all times. More than enough liquid cash is immediately available, and the annuity is easily sustainable over the 20-year period from the donor’s assets. If the donor dies, the annuity is protected even from immediate family member challenge by thorough, careful legal work. Even on the an emotional level, the family has also been made well aware of the donor’s resolute wish to continue underwriting the Prize for as long as the Foundation cares to manage it. Regardless, the legal documentation and accounting are in order to guarantee the annuity.