Undirected evolution - Understanding Evolution (berkeley.edu)...

Undirected evolution - Understanding Evolution (berkeley.edu)

DBT9,
Below is an extract from the website you provided.

----------------------------------------------------
Undirected evolution
The term “directed evolution” is a bit misleading since it might suggest that the scientist directs individual steps in the process (“Tweak this…change that…now rotate this end of the molecule a bit" Actually, the only thing that Andy “directs” is selecting the job that the final RNA product ought to perform. The rest of the evolutionary process can be automated — in fact, Andy’s lab has programmed robots to do the tedious, repetitive work

'This process of engineering via evolution is quite different from engineering via design. When Andy sets out to engineer a molecule by evolution, he decides if the molecule ought to bind a particular type of cell, bind a particular protein, or cause a particular chemical reaction. The evolutionary process then tries out more than a million billion (that’s 1,000,000,000,000,000!) different molecules and builds the one that does the job the best. Andy doesn’t know what the “winning” molecule will look like or exactly how it will get the job done — he just knows that it will work.'

'Machines synthesize billions of DNA sequences, and use them to build the corresponding RNA molecules. The robots then put the RNA to the test to see which molecules can perform the desired task. The RNA sequences that perform best are kept, and most of the rest are weeded out. The selected RNAs are used to build corresponding DNA, which is then copied. These steps are automatically repeated until an almost pure pool of useful RNA is built. Andy’s job here is just to tell the machines what procedure to follow and set the works in motion.'
-----------------------------------------------

DBT9,
1)With the technology at Andy Ellington's hands he should be able to make a self replicating RNA molecule
2)The is a certain irony that that in the RNA world , life started with RNA, no DNA required.
but here machines synthesize billions of DNA sequences, and use them to build the corresponding RNA molecules.