James Tour at McGovern Medical School in Houston

I disagree. The raison d’etre for DNA and RNA is to make proteins. RNA is a means to that end.

In any case, you are gloriously missing the point, which is that I am not denying an important role to RNA, but pointing out that you are misusing the term “RNA world” as it is used in origin-of-life discussions. My complaint is about your misleading use of the phrase in the context of “how did life begin?” discussions. “RNA World” does not mean “any world, including today’s, in which RNA is an important part of life”; it means “a hypothetical earlier state of organic life, in which the modern DNA-protein system had not yet evolved, and RNA ran the whole show.” But since you seem obtuse on this point, I will let it go. You can read the origin of life literature, or you can ignore it, as you please.