Is Abiogenesis relevant to Evol or not?

Here is an article I thought you might like to respond to.

Apologetics Press -

ttechsan said:

Here is an article I thought you might like to respond to.

Apologetics Press -

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I for one would be much more likely to respond to a poster who puts up on the board her/his own arguments (even if they're borrowed from elsewhere) and explains why (s)he finds them persuasive. I may be in a (lazy) minority of one, but when reading through a busy message board I'm disinclined to be sidetracked onto a link that may or may not contain anything interesting to discuss.

Put the arguments to us yourself, ttechsan.

Relevant to but not a part of.

Abiogenesis is a theory explaining the origins of life - models a way that components that can reproduce can be formed
Evolution is a theory explaining the diversity of life - models a way that natural selection combined with variation in a reproduction processes can result in diversity

I know it's easier to attack a straw man than an actual scientific theory, but could you just try to use relevant criticism?

Evolution deals with the diversity of life, not with how it arose. It doesn't deal with the beginning of the Universe either, no matter if a physicist uses the term. The term evolution =/= the theory of evolution.

Evolution =/= atheism. You can believe that one or several gods created the very first life forms and still believe in evolution.

Abiogenesis is not relevant to evolution.

Evolution, however, did significantly boost the expectations for demonstrating abiogenesis.

Abiogenesis may have been the original source of the material evolution works with, but it is not an issue in the mechanisms of evolution studied by biologists. Yes, you can claim all things are related, but this becomes absurdly impractical when you seek to expand the purview of every discipline infinitely. Just because we don't understand the mechanism by which molybdenum is created in supernovae doesn't cast the science of metallurgy into doubt.

Evolution is the mechanism by which extant organisms change. Biogenesis is a whole different field of study. Just because we don't yet fully understand the origin of life doesn't obviate the whole science of biology.

This whole Law of Biogenesis thing Ttechsan keeps bringing up is a red herring.
There was a time of no life on Earth. Now there is life on Earth. Extending this LoB to preclude an origin at some point is absurd. None of the people quoted in Ttchsan's links are claiming life did not begin at some point.


So far these Apologetics Press articles Ttechsan keeps linking to have been little more than cherry picked and misapplied "facts" and quotations. I really don't understand how he finds these persuasive. Moreover, he claims to be familiar with the ToE yet somehow can't seem to grasp its major tenets.

ttechsan said:

Here is an article I thought you might like to respond to.

Apologetics Press -

Click to expand...

1) Evolution is not atheism.

2) Abiogensiis is not evolution. Evolution stands on its own even if abiogensis didn't happen

3) There is evidence for Abiogensis

ttechsan said:

Here is an article I thought you might like to respond to.

Apologetics Press -

Click to expand...

I find it interesting that these articles you keep linking to are uniformly dishonest.

How can you keep referring to them without a deep sense of shame?

I'd say abiogenesis is relevant to evolution as an initial condition, & cuz evolution at this stage could've been different from what we observe today.
However, Apologetics Press is irrelevant. (It's an inferior site which makes creationists look bad. It might be the work of mischievous atheists.)

Abiogenesis, evolution, consciousness, awareness, life, death....It's all just gradual changes brought about by the interactions found within matter. There is really nothing more too it than that. Nothing mystical. Nothing supernatural. It's just the fundamental forces of nature at work.

Let me put it this way. If I say I am going to take a train from California to Japan, someone might say that there isn't a train that goes from California to Japan. Then I will say to them, that is a different discussion.

Wait...I'm confused. I thought the word abiogenesis was used to describe when monkey's gave birth to humans...

Man of Faith said:

Let me put it this way. If I say I am going to take a train from California to Japan, someone might say that there isn't a train that goes from California to Japan. Then I will say to them, that is a different discussion.

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I demand that the contractors that come to my house, building, painting, hammering, etc, knows physics and chemistry. Why? Because house building can't be a true form of engineering unless we understand quantum physics and where metal, wood, glue, and so forth comes from. /sarc

Man of Faith said:

Let me put it this way. If I say I am going to take a train from California to Japan, someone might say that there isn't a train that goes from California to Japan. Then I will say to them, that is a different discussion.

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Abiogenesis to evolution is more like a road trip from California to Alaska. Your side admits that you can drive from California to Oregon, Oregon to Washington, Washington to BC and BC to Alaska, but for some reason refuses to admit it is possible to drive the whole way. Or for ten cars leaving California to wind up in ten dramatically different locations.

I just don't accept the conventional idea of abiogenesis. Animate creatures did not emerge out of completely inanimate matter. The way I see it, the term inanimate would describe something that is static, unchanging, and not capable of interacting at any level. That to me does not describe matter. Animate creatures emerged because matter is and always was animate at some level. Matter is dynamic, ever-changing, transformative, lively, energetic, interactive... There is only that which is lifelike. Some forms of matter are arranged, evolved, and interact in complex ways so as to appear more lifelike than other more simple forms.

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I think abiogenesis is relevant to the supposed evolution of life. How can the start of something not be relevant to what is claimed is the cause for the incredible complexity of even the smallest living organism? Evolution is a theory without a beginning, and without a foundation. Little wonder it's proponents want to ignore the question of how it started.

Runewolf1973 said:

I just don't accept the conventional idea of abiogenesis. Animate creatures did not emerge out of completely inanimate matter. The way I see it, the term inanimate would describe something that is static, unchanging, and not capable of interacting at any level. That to me does not describe matter.

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Don't chemical reactions count as interaction at some level?

rusra02 said:

I think abiogenesis is relevant to the supposed evolution of life.

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Demonstrated, not "supposed".

How can the start of something not be relevant to what is claimed is the cause for the incredible complexity of even the smallest living organism?

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Because we are talking about two different, if perhaps related things. One is the differentiation among lifeforms. The other is the origin of the first few lifeforms.

Evolution is a theory without a beginning, and without a foundation.

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Also, humans never lie. Or something.

Little wonder it's proponents want to ignore the question of how it started.

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We do not want to ignore it. I fully expect abiogenesis to be, if not demonstrated as the way life began, to at least be demonstrated as feasible, quite possibly within my lifetime.

It just won't make any difference far as the validity of the ToE itself goes. At most it is a logical (if yet unproven) philosophical extension of it.

LuisDantas said:

Don't chemical reactions count as interaction at some level?

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Yes, all matter interacts at some level. Even on the quantum level there is activity, motion, action, reaction. Nothing is static or inanimate, everything is dynamic and animated in some way. Those fundamental forces are present and work at every level


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rusra02 said:

I think abiogenesis is relevant to the supposed evolution of life. How can the start of something not be relevant to what is claimed is the cause for the incredible complexity of even the smallest living organism? Evolution is a theory without a beginning, and without a foundation. Little wonder it's proponents want to ignore the question of how it started.

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No one is ignoring the question of how it started. There's a lot of research going on to find that answer, but it's not grouped under evolution.

Of course it's interesting and somewhat relevant for evolution to know how it started, but evolution it's not dependent on it. It stands on its own just like hammer-and-nail work without knowing from where the wood came for the handle or which mine the iron was mined.

Evolution is the process of life changing. Abiogenesis is the process of how life came to be.

There are some research suggesting that part of life came from space, and not from this planet, but that won't change the facts of how lifeforms are changing.

If you understand these differences, then you've taken a giant leap in understanding evolution. If you don't understand these differences, then you haven't the slightest clue what evolution is.