A bit late, but…
Richard Dawkins - The Blind Watchmaker, pg 188 Chapter titled “The Power and the Archives”
Describes a repeatable experiment of a series of test tubes and the RNA replication from one to the next. Each test tube contains RNA replicase (like a factory that produces RNA from a genetic blueprint, these are a natural cellular component) and raw materials from which RNA can be constructed.
The initial RNA is dropped into the first test tube. It is replicated like crazy. Some amount of genetic drift is noted (some of the RNA is not entirely correct). This is the beginning of evolution, although at this point entirely random (as it always is).
Then, as the solution is transferred from tube to tube, it begins that the RNA (initially a viral RNA) begins to strip down to a more basic form. It no longer contains genetic instructions for creating replicase, as this is provided for it in the test tube. It becomes simplest form it can be. This change is driven by replication speed. The RNA which duplicates the fastest become the most numerous and is duplicated again. This is evolution.
Then, a problem is presented. Poison is introduced, weak at first, then increasingly strong from tube to tube as the RNA adapts. The poison is doubled each time. After 100 test tubes, the RNA is in its 40th distinct generation of genetic change and can thrive in 10 times the poison that the first generation could. It has evolved, not in particular response to the poison, but the genetic drifts that allowed fast replication in a poison environment were replicated more and came to dominate the gene pool. All evolution works like this, hence the title of the book, The Blind Watchmaker.
Now comes the amazing part. In a repeated, scrutinized, independently verified experiment, a German lab working on the origin of life used the same test tube filed with replicase and raw building materials idea, but provided NO genetic blueprint at all. A particularly large RNA molecule evolved SPONTANEOUSLY in the test tube. Not only was contamination ruled out, but the experiment was performed again and again by them and others and each time the EXACT SAME RNA was spontaneously produced…
Get this book and read it. It is written well and simply by an excellent teacher. It is a conversation starter and (I feel) far more worthwhile than Darwin’s Origin of Species as an introduction to evolution. I highly recommend it, and yes, I have a 10th grade education (I am 46).