The Origin of Self-Replicating Molecules

How could self-replicating molecules have come into being—with sufficient length and concentration to get life started—without the interference of an organic chemist? Formation of the pieces—bases, sugars, and thence nucleotides—is fairly well understood. Hooking them together in strings of eight or ten nucleotides seems not too hard to imagine. The next steps require an understanding of the origins of a self-replicating molecule, and of the genetic code. Only the former is discussed in this chapter.