Hi Garamond No problem with the delay I had to sleep It might take me a while to dig out references and to make matters worse I doubt that the references would use the identical terms that I did However let s explain some of my intentions in replying to your perfectly reasonable questions I ve never heard of chemical reactions being described as consistent or non random Here you take me aback firstly I have a personal niggle with the frequently incorrect use of the term random to mean little more than varied or unpredictable In this respect I have sinned somewhat myself in that quoted text I trust that something like my precise intention will emerge from my circumscription I am not sure whether your objection is that your various colleagues and contacts disagreed with my intended meaning or whether they simply would have used different terms Nor would I argue if someone were to propose different terms As far as the intended sense is concerned consider in particular reactions that in the absence of constraint incline to inconsistent chirality or branching I am sure that your colleagues would not expect to get consistent production of L amino acids or purely straight chain fatty acids by passing sparks through a notionally primitive atmosphere or by the application of charring heat Conversely in attempting to produce similar compounds by appropriate application of enzymes and other appropriate catalysts to suitable precursors I am sure that they would expect thoroughly consistent chirality and straight chains I am slightly nonplussed by your use of the expression the inconsistency and randomness of these reactions I am certain that you have other concepts in mind than those that I did Specificity as I used the term refers to a reaction that works on a particular combination of precursors and produces equally definite combinations or a single product Very commonly the term and the concept go together with selectivity meaning that if the reaction is applied to a mix it will work on only certain compounds in the mix Here again such specificity and selectivity are exactly what one expects in large classes of enzymatic reactions and sees on a large scale in every metabolic chart It most certainly is not the kind of thing one expects to see in a spark driven reaction chamber particularly in the absence of catalysts right You say It s my understanding that enzymes operate randomly inconsistently and non specifically Errr Certainly there are necessarily random aspects to any reaction in which molecules ions and even atoms interact unconstrained but these are not attributes that I would have looked for in enzymatic reactions I expect enzymes to catalyse reactions and interactions in such a manner as to produce predictable chirality and predictable products within certain limits one does not expect quite the same results from applying say chymotrypsin to a protein suspension as when one applies trypsin but within reasonable context and ignoring details of which of a number of similar bonds will be cleaved first one can be pretty confident don t you think I think it would help if you could elaborate on your understanding You ask Is chemically and stereochemically a distinction with a difference In my circles certainly If I produce tartaric acid by oxidising fumaric acid with permanganate I expect a racemic mix whereas a suitably chosen enzyme system will give me a chiral product Both reactions are reasonably chemically specific the enzymatic reaction probably more so but the simpleminded oxidation is not at all stereochemically specific whereas the enzymatic reaction is highly stereochemically specific in the product it yields Conversely given a racemic mix of tartaric acids I would have great difficulty using inorganic reagents to alter one chirality rather than the other Most such reagents are not stereochemically selective even if they are chemically selective Enzymes on the other hand are commonly highly stereochemically as well as chemically selective Are we at cross purposes in some way It is of course possible that you use other terms in this connection and if you do so I certainly have no quarrel but I am quite taken aback by our apparent mutual misunderstanding I had thought that the terms I had used were pretty basic so I would be grateful if we could continue this discussion until the confusion is sorted out Note that in the field of abiogenesis in the sense of this article a common factor in many of the mineral mediated proposals involves substances with particular distributions of charges in particular configurations on crystal surfaces and the like This you will recognise is no novelty in the field of catalysis and in recent decades it has grown to greater prominence in industrial chemistry In part