Chemical Constraint
Chemical Constraint and Stereochemical Affinity
Chemical relationships between RNA and amino acids may have influenced some of the earliest associations that eventually became part of the genetic code.
Coevolution
Coevolution, Selection, and Code Expansion
The genetic code and translation system may have developed gradually as primitive adaptors, amino acids, peptides, metabolism, and translation machinery evolved together.
Self Organization
Self-Organization and Emergent Coding
Coding relationships may have emerged from interacting molecular systems in which feedback, autocatalysis, and mutual dependence produced increasingly organized behavior.
Historical Contingency
Historical Contingency and Frozen Accident
Some features of the genetic code may reflect early historical choices that became difficult to change once organisms depended upon an established translation system.
Design
Purposeful Design
Intelligent Design proposes that the sequence-specific information and coordinated machinery used to interpret and implement biological information may be evidence of purposeful intelligent causation.
