I don't believe I'm that lucky. When placed in chloroform stocked with components, AATE can serve as a template for the formation of new AATE molecules. Without mutations, the molecules cannot evolve in the Darwinian sense. The latter responded by insisting that proteins are too inept to be the vehicle for the first living system, since they are insufficiently versatile. With the protein-first side providing no rebuttal to this criticism, the debate ended with both positions fatally flawed and no more promising alternatives suggested.
Proteins store the same information more economically, using less material.
For example, an average amino acid in a protein chain contains about 16 atoms. The same information, stored in three units of an RNA chain, requires about 100 atoms. In DNA, the identical information is kept in a complex of two chains and needs 200 atoms. This extra expenditure of material in storing the same information would be justified only if there was a corresponding increase in efficiency in moving to the more complex systems. We must presume that the earlier protein-based hereditary system was more cumbersome, and less elegant, than the present one.