This frontiers course is slightly different
from many of the other courses that might have experienced.
Here, we are not presenting a scientific story that is completely worked out.
We don't know in concrete terms how life began,
either as a specific story about our own evolutionary history,
or as a general theory of how life could start.
The field - as it stands - is a collection of ideas,
specific proposals and techniques that are thought to be ingredients
for a specific or general theory of life's origin.
As such, many of these ideas and techniques
are still rapidly evolving.
In this course, we don't have a well-developed,
general theory to take you through that mirrors,
for example, general relativity or thermodynamics.
Nor do we have a particular history to tell you
about exactly how life began and evolved.
This course reflects the field in that we will present a wide variety
of techniques and ideas that should be seen as tools
for those interested in understanding
where origins of life research currently stands,
or in using and combining those tools to pursue new research directions.
Here, we aim to provide you with an overview
of the diverse ways of thinking that must come together to understand
both the specifics and generalities of the origins of life.