Complexity, self-organization and the origin of life: The happy liaison?

Abstract
The spontaneous assembly of amphiphiles into micelles and bilayer membranes, as well as the dynamical self-assembly properties of nucleic acids, suggest that selforganization phenomena played a role in the origin of life. However, current biology indicates that life could have not evolved in the absence of a genetic replicating mechanism insuring the stability and diversification of its basic components. This does not imply that explanations on the appearance of life should reduce themselves to the issue of the emergence of RNA or its predecessors.