Intelligent Design Investigation

Explore the Evidence

The Origin of Life  •  12 evidence records
A Visit With Jesus

This investigation draws upon 12 related evidence records. They are grouped below according to the part of the investigation they help us examine. Select any record for a closer look at the observation, scientific background, significance, uncertainties, and its relevance to Intelligent Design.

The Materials of Life

Prebiotic Chemistry

The Chemical Building Blocks of Life

Living systems are constructed from amino acids, nucleotides, lipids, sugars, and other organic molecules. Origin-of-life research asks how these materials or their precursors could have formed before life existed.
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Prebiotic Chemistry

Concentrating and Organizing Prebiotic Molecules

Chemical reactions relevant to life may require reactants to become concentrated and organized rather than remaining highly diluted in a large body of water.
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Building Larger Molecules

Prebiotic Chemistry

From Building Blocks to Biological Polymers

Life depends upon long molecular chains such as RNA and proteins. Origin-of-life research therefore investigates how smaller chemical building blocks could have joined into useful polymers before biological enzymes existed.
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Replication and the RNA World

Information Replication

The RNA World

RNA can both carry sequence information and perform certain catalytic reactions. This unusual combination has made an early RNA-based stage one of the leading frameworks for origin-of-life research.
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Information Replication

Nonenzymatic RNA Replication

Before protein enzymes existed, an early genetic polymer would have needed some way to make copies without the sophisticated replication machinery used by modern cells.
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Information Replication

Catalytic RNA and Ribozymes

Some RNA molecules fold into shapes that catalyze chemical reactions. Ribozymes demonstrate that RNA can do more than passively store information.
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Toward the First Cells

Protocell

Membranes and the First Protocells

Life is cellular. Primitive membrane compartments may have provided simple containers in which early chemical and replicating systems could become concentrated and inherited together.
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Metabolism

Metabolism and the Capture of Energy

Living systems remain organized by continuously using energy and matter from their surroundings. Origin-of-life research must therefore explain how primitive chemical systems became linked to usable sources of energy.
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Information and the Genetic Code

Information Replication

The Origin of Biological Information

The sequence of nucleotides in genetic molecules affects their structure and function. Origin-of-life research therefore includes the question of how useful sequence-dependent information first emerged and became heritable.
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Information Replication

The Origin of the Genetic Code and Translation

Modern cells translate nucleotide sequences into proteins using the genetic code, transfer RNAs, ribosomes, and numerous supporting molecules. How this coding relationship began is a major question in early evolution.
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Putting the Pieces Together

Origin Environment

Environments Proposed for the Origin of Life

Origin-of-life chemistry depends strongly upon its physical environment. Researchers have proposed several settings that could provide raw materials, concentration mechanisms, energy sources, catalysts, and repeated environmental cycles.
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Integrated System

From Chemistry to an Evolvable Living System

The central origin-of-life problem is ultimately one of integration: how prebiotic chemistry produced a bounded system in which information, replication, chemical function, energy use, and reproduction worked together well enough for Darwinian evolution to begin.
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  Evidence records distinguish observations from proposed explanations and areas that remain uncertain.