Abstract
Impact No. 31, "The Origin of Life - A Critique of Early Stage Chemical Evolution Theories," January, 1976) of this series on origin of life theories, following the discussion of problems involved in a naturalistic origin of relatively simple organic compounds, the problem of the origin of large molecules ("macromolecules"), such as the proteins, DNA, and RNA, was introduced. It was pointed out that one of the insuperable barriers to the accumulation of significant quantities of these very complex molecules (even assuming that the ocean was populated with huge quantities of the necessary chemicals) was the fact that energy is required to form the chemical bonds between the units in these long-chain compounds.