If the minimal organism involves not only the code for its proteins, but also twenty types of soluble RNA, one for each amino acid, and the equivalent of ribosomal RNA, our descendents may be able to make one, but we must give up the idea that such an organism could have been produced in the past, except by a similar pre-existing organism or by an agent, natural or supernatural, at least as intelligent as ourselves, and with a good deal more knowledge.
J. B. S. Haldane;
Data needed for a blueprint of the first organism, 1951.
Published posthumously in S. Fox (ed) The origins of prebiological systems and of their molecular matrices,
Proceedings of a conference at Wakulla Springs, Florida, 27-30 October 1963
Academic Press. New York 1965, p12.
Does anyone know anything about the context of this quote?
I have this page with some other quotes of JBS Haldane.
