Abstract
We point out an intrinsic weakness in the reasoning that adduces a statistical fluctuation as the origin of a left-handed, prebiotic stereoisomeric asymmetry which might have been the initial asymmetry that led to the left-handed asymmetry of proteins observed now on Earth. The argument in favor of a statistical fluctuation as the source of the asymmetry depends implicitly on the assumption of a very small number of terrestrial sites at which polymerization leading to protein formation took place. On the other hand, the probability that a left-handed prebiotic asymmetry produced by a specific mechanism was efficacious would have increased linearly with the number of terrestrial sites. Thus, on the basis of the greater likelihood of a large number of possible polymerization sites in the prebiotic era, a random fluctuation is deemed to be a much less probable source of a stereoisomeric asymmetry than a specific mechanism, particularly the mechanism that follows from the parity violating weak interaction.
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References
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The energy difference between and L-and R-stereoisomer due to the weak neutral current is too small to be of significance; see R. A. Harris and L. Stodolsky: 1978,Phys. Lett. 78B, 313; D. Rein, R. A. Hegstrom, P. G. H. Sanders: 1979,Phys. Lett. 71A, 499; I. B. Khriplovich: 1980,Sov. Phys. JETP 52, 177. No other sources of an energy difference that would favor an asymmetry are known.
See footnote 12 in reference 1 above.
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This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Deceased, July 25, 1983
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Mann, A.K., Primakoff, H. Statistical fluctuation versus specific mechanism and the origin of the left-handed asymmetry of proteins. Origins Life Evol Biosphere 13, 113–118 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00928889
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00928889