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A comment on Time-lapse of a single cell transforming into a salamander (2019). Parent comment

Re:Time-lapse of a single cell transforming into a salamande... by shellfishgene on Tuesday January 26, 2021 @04:48AM (#25914059)
This makes the assumption that all the RNA molecules of 50 bp length are "clean" chains of nucleotides, without any chemical modifications that break the replication process. This is highly unlikely if the RNA is not produced by existing enzymes, but by more or less random chemical processes.
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Re:Time-lapse of a single cell transforming into a salamande... by WClayFerguson on Tuesday January 26, 2021 @11:37AM (#25917825)
It's purely the math probabilities I was getting at above. If you take the number of molecules in a large swimming pool, that is the same number of 50-long RNA molecules it would take to statistically cause at least one RNA to accidentally have any specific pattern of length 50.

In actual evolution this number of RNA molecules can be thought of as 'diluted' across the entire oceans, and not magically sitting in single pond.

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