EVIDENCE FOR ABIOGENESIS - WHAT IS IT ? Please supply it.

[David T]

What atheist has ever demanded evidence for god? We.merely point out that without evidence there is no rational reason to believe in a god.

Do you understand the difference?

Therefore the rational reasoning mind creating all kinds of theories hypothesis speculation and beliefs is in totality irrelevant to nature ?

Agreed.

Or is your rational.reasoning mind with speculation, theories, hypothesis and beliefs more valid somehow? That at a fundamental level is bad science actually!

I.most definitely am Not defending religion as it exists!

 

[Subduction Zone]

Therefore the rational reasoning mind creating all kinds of theories hypothesis speculation and beliefs is in totality irrelevant to nature ?

Agreed.

Where did you get that idea from? We learn through hypotheses and testing of those hypotheses. Learning when you are wrong can be just as important as learning when you are right. Sadly creationists avoid the process of hypothesis and test of that hypothesis. They can't bear the thought that their beliefs might be wrong so they refuse to test them. In the sciences those are worthless beliefs. They are called "not even wrong". When one realizes that one is wrong then at least one knows what path not to take. Refusing to tests one's idea means that no progress is guaranteed.

 

[David T]

Therefore the rational reasoning mind creating all kinds of theories hypothesis speculation and beliefs is in totality irrelevant to nature ?

Agreed.

Abiogenesis, essentially the spontaneous generation of life is critical to the theory of evolution. Darwin wrote of it as part of his theory, and every atheist evolutionist must believe it it. Some say they are an agnostic regarding the proposal, it it has nothing to do with evolution. That is disingenuous and begging the question, could evolution take place without a precursor organism to begin it ? Absolutely not.

I am told of great evidences for it, and in one case, I was told there were only a few problems in proving it.

OK, lets see the evidence. I am familiar with the idea';s of it taking place in a primordial soup, beneath ice, by electricity, panspermia, simple metabolism, clay breeding ground, beneath the earth, at submarine thermal vents, or a much newer one, simple inevitability.

The evidence I have seen ? lacking.

I say the idea is complete, provable, nonsense.

Please, using evidence, prove me wrong.

You spontaneously create fiction yet you are a fact. Apparently that capacity somehow makes you an expert about God and nature!!!! Is that predictable? Absolutely not. Is that rare? Absolutely not.

 

[sayak83]

Abiogenesis, essentially the spontaneous generation of life is critical to the theory of evolution. Darwin wrote of it as part of his theory, and every atheist evolutionist must believe it it. Some say they are an agnostic regarding the proposal, it it has nothing to do with evolution. That is disingenuous and begging the question, could evolution take place without a precursor organism to begin it ? Absolutely not.

I am told of great evidences for it, and in one case, I was told there were only a few problems in proving it.

OK, lets see the evidence. I am familiar with the idea';s of it taking place in a primordial soup, beneath ice, by electricity, panspermia, simple metabolism, clay breeding ground, beneath the earth, at submarine thermal vents, or a much newer one, simple inevitability.

The evidence I have seen ? lacking.

I say the idea is complete, provable, nonsense.

Please, using evidence, prove me wrong.

I have a thread on abiogenesis in Evolution Creation subforum where current evidence is discussed. Please look it up.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I have a thread on abiogenesis in Evolution Creation subforum where current evidence is discussed. Please look it up.

shmogie may have me on ignore, but for the rest:

Science of Abiogenesis:- By popular demand

I see that you began to go into some of the details on the first page at least.

 

[sayak83]

shmogie may have me on ignore, but for the rest:

Science of Abiogenesis:- By popular demand

I see that you began to go into some of the details on the first page at least.

See later posts as well. More details there. Thanks for posting the link.

 

[David T]

Where did you get that idea from? We learn through hypotheses and testing of those hypotheses. Learning when you are wrong can be just as important as learning when you are right. Sadly creationists avoid the process of hypothesis and test of that hypothesis. They can't bear the thought that their beliefs might be wrong so they refuse to test them. In the sciences those are worthless beliefs. They are called "not even wrong". When one realizes that one is wrong then at least one knows what path not to take. Refusing to tests one's idea means that no progress is guaranteed.

Well they have theories based on a framework. Is just the framework a problem? Hell inside church they don't even agree and have all kinds of theories.I mean do you Believe" they actually magically understand the topic god somehow? I see little evidence and what is known is ignored!

 

[Skwim]

Darwin speculated about in other writings as being necessary for evolution to have occurred..

Ah ha, at least now you're doing a little research. Yes indeed he did speculate about abiogenesis in communications with others, BUT NOT, as you said, something "critical to the theory of evolution."

YOUR ignorance is showing.

Where? What have I said in ignorance. (Note: this is a rhetorical question. I really don't care what you may think I said in ignorance)

He he even said the precursor organism, are you ready for this, you might want to stop here, may have been created by God, since he could come up with anything else.

Now you're learning facts instead of making up crap. Isn't this better? In any case, good for you.

LOL, turn it back on me, try a little rope a dope huh ? I'm waiting

Oh, you poor fellow.

Have a good day.




OH Yes! Your inability to answer my challenge is duly noted, as is your attempt to make it go away by ignoring it.

.

 

[exchemist]

A theory must be established upon evidence. I am asking for evidence, not proof.

My tone isn';t confrontational, I simply cut directly to the chase.

What is the educational point of this thread ? Don't you want to know what the evidence is foer the proposal of abiogenesis, especially if you believe it ?

Speak for yourself dear girl. I know a lot more about it than some who pontificate about it, a lot more.

That seems to me questionable - in terms of both tone and knowledge.

For a start, you make (deliberately?) the elementary error of confusing abiogenesis and evolution. This is a common rhetorical ploy by creationists, and is a very stupid conflation to make. As even you yourself point out (by mistake?), Darwin himself was able to put forward his theory and get it vindicated and accepted, without having any solution for the question of how life originally arose.

For other readers, if not for you, evolution proposes a mechanism whereby one variety of self-replicating organism can give rise to other, different varieties, descended from it. But for that mechanism (variation and natural selection) to work, there has first to be a population of self-replicating organisms, for natural selection to operate upon.

The question of how the first self-replicating organism came to be (abiogenesis) is a different science problem - and indisputably a far more difficult one. But the logic of the theory of evolution does not depend in the slightest on knowing the answer to this question. If it did, Darwin could never have put it forward.

As for the evidence that abiogenesis took place, that is obvious. All models of the birth of the solar system involve conditions in which it would be impossible for earthly life to survive. But now, there is life on Earth. Ergo, if our models of the early Earth are good, inorganic chemistry at some point turned into biochemistry. That is all abiogenesis means.

I suspect what you are really challenging is the quality of the evidence for specific mechanisms by which the elements of the biochemistry arose. I would be the first to agree with you that there is very little of that evidence, for good reasons which I outlined in this post - addressed to you, actually - on Monday, in post 290 of this thread: For creationists: Show evidences for creation of man

You never responded, it seems, though you gave it a "like". I presume that means you don't find it contentious.

I am not an expert on abiogenesis, but having a chemistry background I can follow articles on the subject and it interests me. I would be delighted to discuss the topic further with you, so long as you are willing to accept that evolution is, as I have shown above, a theory that stands independently of knowing the mechanisms of abiogenesis.

 

[exchemist]

One note. Time after time I see creationists making the claim of "no evidence" when there clearly is evidence . At that time I try to get them to understand the relatively simple concept of scientific evidence. They all tend to run away at that time.

To put it in a sentence, scientific evidence is evidence that supports a scientific hypothesis or theory. I don't know why this is such a frightening concept to them.

Actually, I think both you and I do know why.

 

[Jumi]

Many who have absolutely no idea of evolution theory say that abiogenesis is critical to evolution theory. Why is that? Is it because these same people are against the teaching of evolution that they try to avoid learning anything at all about it and invent some kind of alternate theory in their imaginations?

 

[exchemist]

Many who have absolutely no idea of evolution theory say that abiogenesis is critical to evolution theory. Why is that? Is it because these same people are against the teaching of evolution that they try to avoid learning anything at all about it and invent some kind of alternate theory in their imaginations?

They need to argue evolution depends on abiogenesis, because abiogenesis is about the only thing left in the story of life where science does not yet have pretty good answers. So if they can just get people to swallow the falsehood that evolution depends on it, they can bring down evolution (which is what they are really after). Simple, eh?

Actually I think this argument is not really intended for use outside their own communities. Within those communities a high level of ignorance prevails, so it is quite easy to for them to make use of a sciency-sounding reason for why they can, amongst themselves, dismiss evolution. But it doesn't survive contact with the outside world, because it is such a stupid argument.

 

[Altfish]

Abiogenesis, essentially the spontaneous generation of life is critical to the theory of evolution. Darwin wrote of it as part of his theory, and every atheist evolutionist must believe it it. Some say they are an agnostic regarding the proposal, it it has nothing to do with evolution. That is disingenuous and begging the question, could evolution take place without a precursor organism to begin it ? Absolutely not.

.

There are so many falsehoods in that first paragraph!

Abiogenesis is NOT critical to the Theory of Evolution.
Darwin did not write about it. Darwin said nothing about how life began.
"Atheists evolutionist" (Whatever that is) may not believe it; it isn't a Theory, it is a good hypothesis that would explain the start of life. Personally, I think it is the best explanation currently available BUT I could be convinced that there is a better explanation (And no, God did it, is not a good explanation)
Yes, without a 'first living thing' there would be no evolution but evolution does not need abiogenesis, it could take place if your god had just pooped various species into existence..

 

[Polymath257]

As for the evidence that abiogenesis took place, that is obvious. All models of the birth of the solar system involve conditions in which it would be impossible for earthly life to survive. But now, there is life on Earth. Ergo, if our models of the early Earth are good, inorganic chemistry at some point turned into biochemistry. That is all abiogenesis means.
.

We can go further. The conditions in the *universe* at, say, 3 seconds into the current expansion, made it impossible for life to exist *anywhere*.

Now, life exists. So, at some point, there was a transition between non-life and life. That is abiogenesis.

The next line of evidence is quite firm: Life is a complex collection of chemical reactions that allow maintenance of internal state, growth, and reproduction.

In other words, there is nothing supernatural about life. There is no 'elan vitale', no 'spark of life', that distinguishes non-life from life. It should be pointed out that this is quite contrary to what people previously believed and goes against most religious dogmas about God 'breathing life' into.

A line of evidence related to this: there is no difference between a carbon atom in a living thing and a carbon atom in, say, carbon dioxide or a carbonate rock. In other words, life itself is made from non-living parts. So, instead of something magically becoming life, we realize that life is a matter of *organization* and not a matter of some new type of substance.

The next line of evidence is that the basic chemicals of life (amino acids, sugars, nucleic bases, etc) are either common in the universe or easily made from chemicals we know are common in the universe (ammonia, water, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, etc). Again, at one time people thought the basic components of life would be difficult to make. This is where the Urey-Miller experiment and related experiments come in: in many different scenarios using what we *know* was present in the atmosphere of the early earth, the basic building blocks (amino acids, sugars, etc) are readily produced.

From the other direction: if all cells were as complicated as those in, say, a human body, then the issue of abiogenesis would be much harder. But, again, we know that eucaryotic cells like those in most multicellular organisms are 'collectives' of other, more primitive organisms. The most well known example is the mitochondria that are the energy centers of the cell. These are closely related to certain types of bacteria, even including their own DNA which has the bacterial structure (as opposed to using histones to wrap the DNA around).

So, we have strong evidence *from the study of biology* that the life we see today has evolved from single celled life. This, by the way, is exactly backwards from the creationists claims. The evidence for evolution doesn't relay on abiogenesis: all the evidence for evolution would still hold even if life originated supernaturally. We would still have the evidence linking single celled life to more complicated life even if life was originally produced supernaturally. This is what we mean when we say that evolution doens't depend on abiogenesis.

But what *is* true currently is that evolution is strong evidence for abiogenesis. We can even look into our modern cells and find remnants of the earliest forms of life. It was from the study of modern cells that the RNA world hypothesis originated. But this has reduced the issues surrounding the metabolism-first vs genetics-first arguments that previously surrounded the subject. Now, we know that RNA can do BOTH genetics and metabolism. It can even catalyze its own reproduction! In some definitions of the term 'life', certain strands of RNA are already alive.

So, we know that the basic chemicals of life are produced in large quantities in environments like that of the early Earth. Do we have evidence that these chemicals can spontaneously assemble into structures necessary for life? Yes! We know that they can, under a variety of conditions (again) produce cell-like structures that will bud off to produce new 'pseudocells' and that can catalyze reactions required for life (like glycolysis). The main reason these pseudocells are NOT considered to be alive is that the concentration of the chemicals inside tends to decrease with each budding.

So, do we have *evidence* of abiogenesis. YES. Plenty of it. Do we know specific mechanisms for how life actually arose on Earth? No. Because of the difficulty of figuring out the exact details of the environment of the early Earth, we may never know specifics.

But we do know that life is a complex collection of chemical reactions involving chemicals that are produced easily on the early Earth, that will spontaneously assemble into cell-lie structures that perform some basic functions of life and that life itself was considerably simpler in the past.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

This sounds like you are accusing shmogie of not being able to be honest.

No, just expecting a fantasy to come true.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No, just expecting a fantasy to come true.

Hardly a fantasy if the OP has any integrity. Several people explained what was wrong with the OP.

 

[exchemist]

Hardly a fant

Hardly a fantasy if the OP has any integrity. Several people explained what was wrong with the OP.

Ah well, we may be able to settle by discovering whether the OP is an ID supporter or not. I have yet to come across any IDer with integrity. Intellectual dishonesty always features at some point in the discussion.

This is hardly surprising in view of the complete lack of integrity of the whole ID project, as the Wedge Document revealed to the world and the Kitzmiller (Dover School) trial subsequently confirmed.

But I have come across YECs with integrity: they just choose to disbelieve the whole of evolutionary biology, geology, geophysics and cosmology. A bit hard to get your head round but self-consistent at least.

 

[exchemist]

We can go further. The conditions in the *universe* at, say, 3 seconds into the current expansion, made it impossible for life to exist *anywhere*.

Now, life exists. So, at some point, there was a transition between non-life and life. That is abiogenesis.

The next line of evidence is quite firm: Life is a complex collection of chemical reactions that allow maintenance of internal state, growth, and reproduction.

In other words, there is nothing supernatural about life. There is no 'elan vitale', no 'spark of life', that distinguishes non-life from life. It should be pointed out that this is quite contrary to what people previously believed and goes against most religious dogmas about God 'breathing life' into.

A line of evidence related to this: there is no difference between a carbon atom in a living thing and a carbon atom in, say, carbon dioxide or a carbonate rock. In other words, life itself is made from non-living parts. So, instead of something magically becoming life, we realize that life is a matter of *organization* and not a matter of some new type of substance.

The next line of evidence is that the basic chemicals of life (amino acids, sugars, nucleic bases, etc) are either common in the universe or easily made from chemicals we know are common in the universe (ammonia, water, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, etc). Again, at one time people thought the basic components of life would be difficult to make. This is where the Urey-Miller experiment and related experiments come in: in many different scenarios using what we *know* was present in the atmosphere of the early earth, the basic building blocks (amino acids, sugars, etc) are readily produced.

From the other direction: if all cells were as complicated as those in, say, a human body, then the issue of abiogenesis would be much harder. But, again, we know that eucaryotic cells like those in most multicellular organisms are 'collectives' of other, more primitive organisms. The most well known example is the mitochondria that are the energy centers of the cell. These are closely related to certain types of bacteria, even including their own DNA which has the bacterial structure (as opposed to using histones to wrap the DNA around).

So, we have strong evidence *from the study of biology* that the life we see today has evolved from single celled life. This, by the way, is exactly backwards from the creationists claims. The evidence for evolution doesn't relay on abiogenesis: all the evidence for evolution would still hold even if life originated supernaturally. We would still have the evidence linking single celled life to more complicated life even if life was originally produced supernaturally. This is what we mean when we say that evolution doens't depend on abiogenesis.

But what *is* true currently is that evolution is strong evidence for abiogenesis. We can even look into our modern cells and find remnants of the earliest forms of life. It was from the study of modern cells that the RNA world hypothesis originated. But this has reduced the issues surrounding the metabolism-first vs genetics-first arguments that previously surrounded the subject. Now, we know that RNA can do BOTH genetics and metabolism. It can even catalyze its own reproduction! In some definitions of the term 'life', certain strands of RNA are already alive.

So, we know that the basic chemicals of life are produced in large quantities in environments like that of the early Earth. Do we have evidence that these chemicals can spontaneously assemble into structures necessary for life? Yes! We know that they can, under a variety of conditions (again) produce cell-like structures that will bud off to produce new 'pseudocells' and that can catalyze reactions required for life (like glycolysis). The main reason these pseudocells are NOT considered to be alive is that the concentration of the chemicals inside tends to decrease with each budding.

So, do we have *evidence* of abiogenesis. YES. Plenty of it. Do we know specific mechanisms for how life actually arose on Earth? No. Because of the difficulty of figuring out the exact details of the environment of the early Earth, we may never know specifics.

But we do know that life is a complex collection of chemical reactions involving chemicals that are produced easily on the early Earth, that will spontaneously assemble into cell-lie structures that perform some basic functions of life and that life itself was considerably simpler in the past.

Yes I notice both you and Altfish make the point that evolution would work perfectly well if abiogenesis were the result of a Goddidit supernatural act. It's good point: I had never thought of it that way.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes I notice both you and Altfish make the point that evolution would work perfectly well if abiogenesis were the result of a Goddidit supernatural act. It's good point: I had never thought of it that way.

As have I countless times. Yet the OP can never explain why accepting some form of abiogenesis, which even the Bible preaches, is "begging the question". I do not think we will ever find out the reasons for that claim.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Ah well, we may be able to settle by discovering whether the OP is an ID supporter or not. I have yet to come across any IDer with integrity. Intellectual dishonesty always features at some point in the discussion.

This is hardly surprising in view of the complete lack of integrity of the whole ID project, as the Wedge Document revealed to the world and the Kitzmiller (Dover School) trial subsequently confirmed.

But I have come across YECs with integrity: they just choose to disbelieve the whole of evolutionary biology, geology, geophysics and cosmology. A bit hard to get your head round but self-consistent at least.

Yes, but it at the very least made for some very good videos. Have you seen the PBS series on that trial? And Eugenie Scott gives some very good lectures on that trial as well. The discovery of the "transition fossil" cdesign proponentsists was extremely humorous.

I too have seen some YEC"s that reject all of the sciences. It is rather odd to find them on forums since they have to deny the very science that allows them to post at forums, but cognitive dissonance strikes deep with YEC's.