Thanks to everyone who participated in my previous post about the presentation I gave about the emergence of life on Rebekah’s “Bread of Life” Youtube channel. Just today, I conducted an interview with Dr. Michael Russell, the founder of the alkaline vent theory for life’s emergence. I also wanted to promote this on this forum and to get feedback from people. I personally disagree with Dr. Russell about a few points that he makes in this interview, but overall I was pleased with how it went and I think it provides good coverage of how vent researchers are pursuing the origin of life question.
My own disagreements with Russell, which I didn’t want to get into because I didn’t want to turn it into a debate, involves lipid membranes (he prefers amyloid peptide membranes, and doesn’t think lipids would be useful at life’s emergence) and thermophoresis as a concentrating mechanism (he doesn’t think the thermal gradient at alkaline vents is strong enough for thermophoresis to work).
If anyone has any thoughts, comments, criticism, feedback, or questions, I’m all ears.
Thanks again!