Thanks for the reference.
I read his Nobel lecture. Completely over my head but I still read it. I caught some of his excitement about the discoveries they were making. And he injects a small touch of humor here and there, good lecture.
These were interesting comments toward the end:
Origin of Life Fantasies
The discoveries of RNA self-splicing and the enzymatic activity of RNase PRNA rekindled earlier speculation concerning the possible role of RNA in the origin of life (Woese, 1967; Crick, 1968; Orgel, 1968). Contemporary cells depend on a complex interplay of nucleic acids and proteins, the former serving as informational molecules and the latter as the catalysts that replicate and express the information. Certainly the first self-reproducing biochemical system also had an absolute need for both informational and catalytic molecules. The dilemma was therefore: Which came first, the nucleic acid or the protein, the information or the function? One solution would be the co-evolution of nucleic acids and proteins (Eigen, 1971). The finding that RNA can be a catalyst as well as an information-carrier lent plausibility to an alternative scenario: the first self-reproducing system could have consisted of RNA alone (Sharp, 1985; Pace & Marsh, 1985; Orgel, 1986).
At least two problems associated with the extra hydroxyl group in ribose may be noted. First, the additional bulk and hydrogen bonding character of the 2'-OH interfere with a uniform double helix structure, preventing the efficient packing of such a molecule in the chromosome. Second, RNA undergoes spontaneous hydrolytic cleavage about one hundred times faster than DNA.
...
Structural stability is not a serious challenge for RNA. The transcripted information carried by mRNA must be secure for only a few hours, as it is transported to a ribosome. Once in the ribosome it is surrounded by structural and enzymatic segments that immediately incorporate its codons for protein synthesis. The tRNA molecules that carry amino acids to the ribosome are similarly short lived, and are in fact continuously recycled by the cellular chemistry.