What is the origin of life according to ToE?

[Debater Slayer]

I will assume that we have descended from a common ancestor that we share with apes, but what is the origin of all life forms? Where did the original ancestors come from?

 

[ScottySatan]

It's difficult to define life. There is no universally accepted definition. I define life as an open system of less entropy than its environment, which must consume outside energy tomaintain itself. It must reproduce. It must react to changes in the environment.

Our first common ancestor was not alive. It was an evolving biopolymer.

 

[Debater Slayer]

It's difficult to define life. There is no universally accepted definition. I define life as an open system of less entropy than its environment, which must consume outside energy tomaintain itself. It must reproduce. It must react to changes in the environment.

That wasn't my question though; I asked about the origin of life (i.e. living organisms), not the definition.

Our first common ancestor was not alive. It was an evolving biopolymer.

Did it evolve randomly or systematically?

 

[Krok]

I will assume that we have descended from a common ancestor that we share with apes, but what is the origin of all life forms? Where did the original ancestors come from?

The TOE does not deal with the origin of life at all. The TOE deals with the origin of species and is a biological theory.

Current evidence (through the fossil record, etc) indicates that the last common cellular ancestor was a form of prokaryotic cells found in very old rocks in Greenland, Australia and South Africa.

The science dealing with the origin of life is called abiogenesis and is studied in the science of chemistry. The ToE doesn't deal with it at all.

There is an overlap though, this overlap is dealt with in subjects such as biochemistry, but the ToE is not involved.

 

[ScottySatan]

Abiogenesis is a branch of evolutionary science. Abiogenesis is absolutely dependent on evolutionary science. The theory of evolution does not go away if we can't explain how life originated, but the story of our evolutionary history will never be complete without it. Creationists are quite right to include abiogenesis when criticising the theory of evolution.

 

[Krok]

Abiogenesis is a branch of evolutionary science.

Certainly not. It is a branch of...abiogenesis. From Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :

In natural science, abiogenesis or biopoesis is the study of how biological life arises from inorganic matter through natural processes, and the method by which life on Earth arose. Most amino acids, often called "the building blocks of life", can form via natural chemical reactions unrelated to life, as demonstrated in the Miller–Urey experiment and similar experiments that involved simulating some of the conditions of the early Earth in a laboratory.

From Abiogenesis FAQs: The Origins of Life :

biogenesis is the field of science dedicated to studying how life might have arisen for the first time on the primordial young Earth.

Evolutionary science is a branch of biology, hence the science of evolutionary biology. From Evolutionary biology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :

Evolutionary biology is a sub-field of biology concerned with the origin of species from a common descent and descent of species, as well as their change, multiplication and diversity over time. Someone who studies evolutionary biology is known as an evolutionary biologist. To philosopher Kim Sterelny, "the development of evolutionary biology since 1858 is one of the great intellectual achievements of science".

From Introduction to Evolutionary Biology :

Evolution is a change in the gene pool of a population over time. A gene is a hereditary unit that can be passed on unaltered for many generations. The gene pool is the set of all genes in a species or population.

It doesn’t matter how many times people like creationists try to change the scientific definition of the ToE, they still deceive people by telling porkies. Their lies won't change the ToE. Their lies won't change abiogenesis.

Abiogenesis is absolutely dependent on evolutionary science..

Abiogenesis is completely dependant on chemicals. Not on the ToE.

The theory of evolution does not go away if we can't explain how life originated,.....

Exactly. It doesn't matter how life originated, it won't change the ToE at all. The reason is that the ToE is not related to the origin of life. The explanation of how life originated will not change the Theory of Evolution at all. Even if The Pink Unicorn breathed fire to create the first life, the Theory of Evolution will stay exactly the same.

... but the story of our evolutionary history will never be complete without it.

Our evolutionary history will never be complete, seeing that we use evidence available and the fact that we will never get all the evidence from every day of the last more than 4 billion years.

... Creationists are quite right to include abiogenesis when criticising the theory of evolution.

No, they show their ignorance about what the ToE is and also their ignorance about what science is. It reflects badly on them, not on the ToE. It reflects badly on their knowledge of science, not on the ToE. It reflects badly on their method of spreading lies and deceiving people about the ToE. It reflects badly on the fact that they don't realize that there is no clear border on where life begins. It is a grey area. For example, Is a prion alive or not? It does show some characteristics that can be included both into the ToE and into abiogenesis. The grey area.

The ToE proudly stands, unrelated to abiogenesis, as thousands of scientists do research relating to the ToE every day, as has been going on for the last 150 years. Nobody has ever found any scientific evidence that contradicts it. Creationists redefining the natural sciences to further their goals won't change science, creationists redefining the definition of abiogenesis to further their goals won't change abiogenesis and creationists redefining the definition of evolution to further their goals won't alter the ToE. Wishful thinking doesn't change reality.

 

[ScottySatan]

Why are some people so passionate about this distinction?

As soon as the first phylogenetic tree was constructed, the next obvious question was, "what was the common ancestor to us all?". THAT is abiogenesis. Every journal, every scientific conference on evolutionary science includes abiogenesis.

Pick one of the models of abiogenesis, read its proposed mechanism. They are all about natural selection and heritable adaptation. Here's a couple articles giving an introduction to a popular abiogenesis models called The RNA World. How is this not about evolution by natural selection?
Modelling evolution on design-by-contract predicts an origin of Life through an abiotic double-stranded RNA world

On the origin of the translation system and the genetic code in the RNA world by means of natural selection, exaptation, and subfunctionalization

 

[jarofthoughts]

I will assume that we have descended from a common ancestor that we share with apes, but what is the origin of all life forms? Where did the original ancestors come from?

TOE doesn't deal with the origin of life at all. That's not what it's for.
If you want to discuss Abiogenesis, that is a different matter, and we can certainly do so, but let's first agree that we're not discussing TOE.

 

[ScottySatan]

Nobody has ever found any scientific evidence that contradicts it.

This is really another topic, but there are several pieces of hard scientific evidence that contradict it. Here is one.

Genome Biology | Full text | The tree of one percent

I don't submit this as evidence against the theory of evolution, ony as evidence that you don't really know what you're talking about as much as you think.

 

[ScottySatan]

Did it evolve randomly or systematically?

there is definitive evidence that random and nonrandom genetic change occurrs. There is no evidence that anyting happened systematically.
The non-random mechanisms of evolutionary change have not been observed in prebiotic systems, except for that which would occur by one famous mathematicial model of chemical and hereditary epistasis.

 

[jarofthoughts]

Why are some people so passionate about this distinction?

Because it is highly inaccurate to lump the two together.
Nobody is arguing that they are not related or that they cannot inform each other, just like ecology and microbiology certainly are related and can inform each other, but they are not the same thing.

 

[ScottySatan]

abiogenesis is an evolutionary model. nothing more, nothing less. I explained why, and provided references to back up my claims. To simply contradict me without rebuttal of the evidence at this point is a non-argument.

 

[Krok]

Why are people that think they know a lot about evolution so passionate about this distinction?

No, I don't think I know so much about evolution, as I'm not a biologist. I evaluate the evidence I obtain through my occupation.

As soon as the first phylogenetic tree was constructed, the next obvious question was, "what was the common ancestor to us all?". THAT is abiogenesis.

No, that’s evolution. Common ancestor deals with evolution, not abiogenesis.

Every journal, every scientific conference on evolutionary science includes abiogenesis.

When anything passes on it's genes, it is evolution, not abiogenesis.

Pick one of the models of abiogenesis, read its proposed mechanism. They are all about natural selection and heritable adaptation.

The moment it deals with these two things, it is evolution, not abiogenesis.

Here's a couple articles giving an introduction to a popular abiogenesis models called The RNA World. How is this not about evolution by natural selection?

Modelling evolution on design-by-contract predicts an origin of Life through an abiotic double-stranded RNA world .

All this means is that the time-span of evolution is extended to earlier than we thought in the past.

On the origin of the translation system and the genetic code in the RNA world by means of natural selection, exaptation, and subfunctionalization

The moment any organism can pass on it's genes to the next generation, it becomes part of ToE. What happens before that, is not part of ToE.
Are you trying to tell us that our evidence tell us that we know how life originated?

 

[ScottySatan]

I'm going to bite my tongue here, because the poor person who started this thread wasn't asking about this and we've completely taken over. Read those two papers I linked to and I think you'll see what I mean. I'll debate you in a new thread if you like.

 

[Krok]

This is really another topic, but there are several pieces of hard scientific evidence that contradict it. Here is one.

Genome Biology | Full text | The tree of one percent

I don't submit this as evidence against the theory of evolution, ony as evidence that you don't really know what you're talking about as much as you think.

No, that's where you make a big mistake. The fossil evidence shows the first cellular organisms. You can't deny evidence, whether you would like to or not. Unless you want to deny that those fossils exist.

 

[Krok]

there is definitive evidence that random and nonrandom genetic change occurrs. There is no evidence that anyting happened systematically.
The non-random mechanisms of evolutionary change have not been observed in prebiotic systems, except for that which would occur by one famous mathematicial model of chemical and hereditary epistasis.

The evidence shows that it did happen. Whether it was random or non random or both. It happened, the idea is to figure out how it happened. It doesn't matter which words you choose to describe it with: it happened.

 

[ScottySatan]

A language barrier is killing this dead. I'm sorry, but I'm going to stop debating with you, Mr. Krok.

 

[Krok]

A language barrier is killing this dead. I'm sorry, but I'm going to stop debating with you, Mr. Krok.

Yes, I realized that you had a problem understanding very basic English.
You're welcome to stop. In the end you provided references where the researchers studied plants (which developed millions of years after first life, etc.) All in a thread discussing the origin of life.
The ToE still has got nothing to do with the origin of life.

 

[jarofthoughts]

abiogenesis is an evolutionary model. nothing more, nothing less. I explained why, and provided references to back up my claims. To simply contradict me without rebuttal of the evidence at this point is a non-argument.

Krok broke it down for you, even if I couldn't be bothered.

Let's do this one more time: The Theory of Evolution does not deal with the origin of life.
That's not what it's for.

 

[ScottySatan]

The Theory of Evolution does not deal with the origin of life.

Evolution is the process by which the first prototype organism came to be, where only inorganic materials existed before. When you read a paper on abiogenesis, it's almost entirely about evolution by natural selection, only applied to non-living stuff. It's the beginning of evolution, the beginning of our story, and an enormous part of who we are.

If you accept that we're all twigs on a phylogenetic tree, then abiogenesis was the very first step at the base of the trunk.