Sir Francis Crick in 1968 that first suggested that RNA must have been the first genetic molecule, further suggesting that RNA, besides acting as a template, might also act as an enzyme and, in so doing, catalyze its own self-replication. It was proven in 1980 by Nobel Prize-winning researcher Thomas R. Cech. RNA has the ability to act as both genes and enzymes. This property could offer a way around the "chicken-and-egg" problem. (Genes require enzymes; enzymes require genes.) Furthermore, RNA can be transcribed into DNA, in reverse of the normal process of transcription. These facts are reasons to consider that the RNA world could be the original pathway to cells.

Virtually all biologists agree that bacterial cells cannot form from nonliving chemicals in one step. If life arises from nonliving chemicals, there must be intermediate forms, "precellular life." Of the various theories of precellular life,(and there are many of them) the most popular is "the RNA world."