The process of coacervation[6] was famously proposed by Alexander Oparin and J. B. S. Haldane as crucial in his early theory of abiogenesis (origin of life/proiskhozhdenie zhizni). This theory proposes that metabolism predated information replication, although the discussion as to whether metabolism or molecules capable of template replication came first in the origins of life remains open[7] and for decades the theory of Oparin and Haldane was the leading approach to the origin of life question.