Could life’s instructions exist without ever being made? This question raises what is called a “bootstrap problem.”1 It describes information that is copied and passed on even though it has no first source. A recent RNA study shows why this remains a key problem for ideas about the origin of life.
Modern cells store instructions in DNA. Proteins help read, copy, and repair those instructions. Yet cells must use DNA instructions to build many of those same proteins. Conventional scientists often suggest that RNA came before DNA and proteins. RNA can store information, and some RNA molecules can also carry out chemical tasks.
But an early RNA system would have faced a major problem. Heat, water, and other chemicals can damage RNA. Broken strands would lose part of their stored information. A system that could not protect or repair its instructions would soon stop working.
Researchers recently developed an RNA molecule called a ribozyme that can join certain broken RNA strands. The ribozyme recognized a chemical tag on one broken end and then joined it to another RNA molecule. The reaction took place more than 100,000 times faster than it did without the ribozyme.2
This result shows great precision. The ribozyme did not join every RNA strand it met. Instead, it responded to one unique chemical feature, placed the needed parts in the right position, and helped form a new bond. Like a well-built machine, the ribozyme found the target, chose the right parts, and made the repair.
Yet the test did not show such a repair system forming on its own. The researchers began with an earlier engineered ribozyme. They changed part of its sequence and made about 100 trillion versions. The scientists also prepared the RNA targets and controlled the heat, salt, acid level, and magnesium. Lab tools were used to find successful molecules, copy them, and repeat the process.3
A Notre Dame report said the study may show how early RNA-based life could have repaired its genetic material.3 But it did so only after careful design, testing, and control.
Previous ICR work has noted the same issue in other ribozyme studies. Researchers may produce useful RNA molecules in a lab, but these results do not explain how the first working RNA strands arose without an intelligent source.4
This is the heart of the bootstrap problem. A repair system can protect information, but it cannot explain where that information first came from—just as a spell checker can fix errors in a book, but it cannot write the book. In the same way, an RNA repair system may protect an existing sequence without explaining who or what produced it.
Scripture gives a clear first source rather than an endless information loop: “For by Him all things were created” (Colossians 1:16). Life’s repair systems do more than protect molecules. Their exact and ordered work reflects the wisdom of the Creator who gave living things both their form and their instructions.
References
- A bootstrap paradox is a loop in which an object or piece of information is passed from one point to another even though it was never first created. A common example is a time traveler who takes a book into the past and gives it to the person later credited with writing it. The book exists, but no one actually wrote it. See Heinlein, R. A. 1941. By His Bootstraps. Astounding Science Fiction. 28 (2): 9–47.
- Biswas, A. et al. 2026. A Ribozyme Ligase That Requires a 3’ Terminal Phosphate on Its RNA Substrate. Nature Communications. 17, article 5634.
- Lawlor, E. F. Researchers Show How Early RNA-Based Life May Have Repaired Its Genome, Providing Insight into the Origins of Life. University of Notre Dame news release. Posted on news.nd.edu July 13, 2026.
- Tomkins, J. P. Life from an ‘RNA World’? Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org September 6, 2016.
* Dr. Corrado earned a Ph.D. in systems engineering from Colorado State University and a Th.M. from Liberty University. He is a freelance contributor to ICR’s Creation Science Update, works in the nuclear industry, and is a Captain in the U.S. Naval Reserve.
