Origin of life: Who accepts which explanations?

Jack W. Szostak · Terrestrial abiogenesis

Szostak describes early-Earth surface chemistry in impact-crater and volcanic settings as producing key building blocks, with fatty-acid membranes self-assembling into primitive compartments.

Jack W. Szostak · RNA-first

His 2025 lecture explicitly centers the RNA World hypothesis and asks how prebiotic Earth chemistry could generate RNA that became part of the first primordial cells.

Now we just needed to figure out how to get RNA from nothing

Nick Lane · Terrestrial abiogenesis

Lane's work links alkaline hydrothermal geochemistry, carbon fixation, protocells and selection into a continuous terrestrial route from non-life toward cells.

Nick Lane · RNA-first

Lane's framework allows genes and proteins to emerge from a pre-existing protometabolic network; that is incompatible with RNA or genetic replication being the primary initiating stage in the exact sense defined here.

before the emergence of genes

Nick Lane · Metabolism-first

The model starts with hydrothermal energy gradients, carbon fixation and self-organizing protocells, producing metabolic heredity before fully developed genetic heredity.

giving a metabolic heredity that promotes growth

Nick Lane · Coupled systems

Lane describes a continuum in which geochemistry generates protocells, metabolic heredity enables selection, and genetic information emerges within that system rather than from an isolated molecule.

Nick Lane · Panspermia

Lane has explicitly said there is no evidence that intact life arrived from elsewhere and that panspermia merely relocates the unanswered origin problem; his current research continues to develop a terrestrial hydrothermal model.

it just moves the problem somewhere else

John D. Sutherland · Terrestrial abiogenesis

Sutherland's current account works upward from geochemically plausible chemistry, including hydrogen-cyanide networks that can generate nucleotide, amino-acid and lipid precursors.

John D. Sutherland · RNA-first

Sutherland studies nucleotide chemistry and RNA-related pathways, while explicitly arguing against focusing solely on genetics and emphasizing co-evolution with other chemical subsystems.

John D. Sutherland · Metabolism-first

His holistic strategy treats metabolism as one interacting dimension alongside genetics and compartmentalization rather than documenting a simple metabolism-first ordering.

John D. Sutherland · Coupled systems

Sutherland explicitly combines 'biology down' and 'chemistry up' and stresses interconnected chemical innovations rather than isolated origin scenarios.

more than isolated experiments

Sara Imari Walker · Coupled systems

Walker's 2026 assembly-theory essay seeks physical measures for the transition from non-life to life and explicitly aims to bridge the traditional divide between metabolism-first and genetics-first scenarios.

cascade of major transitions in molecular order

Gary Ruvkun · Terrestrial abiogenesis

In a 2025 Nobel Prize conversation, Ruvkun directly agrees that the tree of life makes him suspect terrestrial life originated elsewhere and then identifies his view as panspermia.

Gary Ruvkun · Panspermia

Ruvkun says he suspects life did not originate on Earth and argues that interplanetary spread is a serious possibility worth testing through searches for shared genetic signatures.

It's panspermia

Richard Dawkins · Terrestrial abiogenesis

Dawkins says the origin remains unresolved in detail but describes the relevant event as chemistry giving rise to a self-replicating molecule on the early Earth.

Something the laws of chemistry gave rise to a molecule

Richard Dawkins · RNA-first

Dawkins says the first replicator was almost certainly not DNA and required a precursor; the cited statement is not specific enough to classify him as endorsing or rejecting RNA-first.

There had to be a precursor to DNA.

Richard Dawkins · Divine / intelligent agency

When directly asked whether the first replicating structure might be the work of God, Dawkins argues that adding God is explanatorily superfluous. His later public statements continue to reject belief in God for lack of evidence.

It's a superfluous part of the explanation.

Stephen C. Meyer · Terrestrial abiogenesis

Meyer argues that chance and self-organization do not adequately explain life's digital information and presents intelligence, rather than a purely physical-chemical origin, as the better causal explanation.

not blind processes, but intelligence

Stephen C. Meyer · Divine / intelligent agency

Meyer explicitly presents intelligent design as the best explanation for life's digital code and, in his broader current argument, connects design evidence to a Creator.

BioLogos · Terrestrial abiogenesis

BioLogos says God could have created the first life through regular processes or through a miracle. It therefore allows terrestrial abiogenesis without claiming that a particular natural pathway is established.

God could have created the first life through regular processes

BioLogos · RNA-first

BioLogos explains the gene-first/RNA hypothesis but says both gene-first and metabolism-first accounts lack conclusive evidence, so its institutional position is not a clear endorsement or rejection.

BioLogos · Metabolism-first

BioLogos presents metabolism-first alongside gene-first/RNA accounts and explicitly says neither has conclusive evidence, leaving its position on the exact proposition unresolved.

BioLogos · Panspermia

BioLogos notes the possibility that life came from another planet but says this only moves the origin problem elsewhere and does not provide a compelling scientific explanation of life's first origin.

only pushes the question farther back

BioLogos · Divine / intelligent agency

BioLogos explicitly affirms divine creation and sustenance of life, while allowing either regular natural processes or a miracle as the proximate means.

God is the creator and sustainer of all life