Metabolism First and RNA World are two competing hypotheses that have both been around for a long time.
Here's a nice recent review of the field:
Here's a nice recent review of the field:
The idea of how MF would work presented in the article sounds really implausible.
My idea of how MF would work is something like this:
1. You get a lot of weird chemistry happening, say, in pools of water. This chemistry starts creating large organic molecules that are like sludge building up in the pools. These molecules are dead, but they are rich in energy and perhaps interesting building blocks. Maybe they are made of amino acids.
2. Now you have this unbelievably rich energy source, and at some point there start appearing chemical chain reactions that start "eating" the sludge.
3. Life originates from these chemical chain reactions.
In that article, their version of MF seems to require high energy. Mine happens under gentle conditions.
I think that's the whole of my idea.