Evolution and abiogenesis

[ehcks]

So let's say 200 years from now we still don't have a definitive account of abiogenesis, just a bunch of failed experiments and various theories without any consensus.

You don't think evolution theory would be harmed by this? I think it would catastrophic. Evolution is a theory that explains how life forms change over time. Of course it needs a plausible explanation of how life began in the first place. Otherwise, it's like what Skeptical Ginger said: You're trying to explain pregnancy without talking about fertilization.

We already know about things that get pregnant without being fertilized. Parthenogenic lizards are interesting things.

We also already know that life exists. We know that it changes over time. As far as the study of evolution is concerned, it doesn't really matter how it got here, because it's here and we can examine it.

 

[ThunderChunky]

So let's say 200 years from now we still don't have a definitive account of abiogenesis, just a bunch of failed experiments and various theories without any consensus.

You don't think evolution theory would be harmed by this? I think it would catastrophic. Evolution is a theory that explains how life forms change over time. Of course it needs a plausible explanation of how life began in the first place. Otherwise, it's like what Skeptical Ginger said: You're trying to explain pregnancy without talking about fertilization.

It doesn't matter if the egg was fertilized in vitro or just the old fashioned way. Or perhaps there was no fertilization at all and the pregnancy is the result of somatic cell nuclear transfer or induced pluripotent stem cells, this does not change anything with the pregnancy.

 

[steenkh]

I think it is important to emphasize that there are many biologists who are Christian in some way, and they have no problem with evolution precisely because evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis. Their god can have created the first spark of life, and evolution just continues from there. This fact alone make it clear that we should not oblige the literalist creationists and treat abiogenesis as part of the same theory as evolution.

The world is not suddenly 6000 years old, and humans did suddenly live along with the dinosaurs just because we cannot come up with a plausible pathway for a naturalistic abiogenesis. Linking the two is to acknowledge the argument of the literalist creationists is in some way correct, even though it is as wrong as ever.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Electromagnetism?

I know the physics and chemistry behind abiogenesis and evolution is the same.

So electromagnetism isn't also occurring at the molecular level in evolution? And were there no selection pressures that affected molecular replication earlier on?

I'm saying that they are not the same thing and that one does not truly require the other,

So evolution need not have a starting place?

and attacking abiogenesis does not attack evolution.

This is an unrelated argument that generally only comes up with deniers.

 

[marplots]

We already know about things that get pregnant without being fertilized. Parthenogenic lizards are interesting things.

We also already know that life exists. We know that it changes over time. As far as the study of evolution is concerned, it doesn't really matter how it got here, because it's here and we can examine it.

I think this would be true if evolution weren't a historical theory, a theory about how things came to be as they are. If it were just forward looking, we wouldn't care so much about abiogenesis. But when we start down the causality chain and start asking, "Well, what came before that?" we naturally arrive at abiogenesis.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So let's say 200 years from now we still don't have a definitive account of abiogenesis, just a bunch of failed experiments and various theories without any consensus.

You don't think evolution theory would be harmed by this? I think it would catastrophic. Evolution is a theory that explains how life forms change over time. Of course it needs a plausible explanation of how life began in the first place. Otherwise, it's like what Skeptical Ginger said: You're trying to explain pregnancy without talking about fertilization.

Uh, that's not exactly what I said. I said fertilization was part of the pregnancy, just as abiogenesis is part of evolution theory. I never said you couldn't talk about a pregnancy without talking about fertilization.

First off, you are off base about the "bunch of failed experiments and various theories without any consensus." Perhaps you've not checked in a while. Researchers are very close to unlocking the steps before abiogenesis and 200 years is a stretch. But regardless, how would that harm evolution theory?

 

[ThunderChunky]

So electromagnetism isn't also occurring at the molecular level in evolution? And were there no selection pressures that affected molecular replication earlier on?

Not all "replication" is darwinian (eg crystal growth and prions).
Abiogenesis could have been going a long time before the first darwinian replicators appeared, or maybe not, we dont know.

 

[Fudbucker]

I think this would be true if evolution weren't a historical theory, a theory about how things came to be as they are. If it were just forward looking, we wouldn't care so much about abiogenesis. But when we start down the causality chain and start asking, "Well, what came before that?" we naturally arrive at abiogenesis.

Exactly. If you work a theory backwards far enough, you better not end up with a big question mark. This goes for biology as much as it does for cosmology.

 

[Darwin123]

So let's say 200 years from now we still don't have a definitive account of abiogenesis, just a bunch of failed experiments and various theories without any consensus.

You don't think evolution theory would be harmed by this? I think it would catastrophic. Evolution is a theory that explains how life forms change over time. Of course it needs a plausible explanation of how life began in the first place. Otherwise, it's like what Skeptical Ginger said: You're trying to explain pregnancy without talking about fertilization.

It is done all the time. Their are many family where when the mother gets pregnant, she explains the pregnancy to the youngest children without explaining fertilization. One doesn't need to know how fertilization occurs for purposes of prenatal care.

A girl can't prove that she is not pregnant by claiming that she never had sex. She can't prove that she isn't pregnant by claiming that she never had sex. The belief in her pregnancy won't stop because there were no witnesses to her copulation.

The development of an embryo takes place the same way regardless of how the fertilization takes place. There are parthenogenetic lizards and salamander that have virgin births all the time. Their entire species consists of females. The development of their embryo is basically the same as in species that sexually reproduce. One can list most stages in embryo growth without knowing a thing about spermatozoa.

There is a theory that the human species went through a period of time when the connection between sex and pregnancy was unknown. In most animal species, neither father nor mother really know how fertilization is connected with pregnancy. A males and females can have sex without knowing how fertilization is accomplished.

The female will find it hard to ignore the pregnancy. She may not even know who the father is. Fertilization is an important process, surely. However, knowing how pregnancy develops and knowing how it starts are completely different.

If we never find out how abiogenesis first occurred, then we would still know how organisms have evolved. Abiogenesis may have occurred 3 BY before the first animal.

Animals with hard parts have only been around for 550 MY. Most fossils that scientists have studied come from animals with hard parts. We know some things about their evolution. Scientists are learning more. We know a great deal about evolution in the last 550 MY based on these animals. We are not sure how these first animals evolved because soft animals don't leave many fossils.

The origin of animals with hard parts is not important in understanding their evolution over the last 550 MY. We know there were organisms that lived before, but we don't know as much about them. Soft animals appeared maybe 770 MYA. Bacteria-like cells appeared maybe 3 BY ago. These soft organisms SOMETIMES leaves fossils, and they left genes in their descendants. However, we probably will never know everything about these soft organisms.

The knowledge we gain about evolution in the last 550 MY does not depend on how the hard animals got there.

Scientists are currently sure that modern day birds evolved from a nonavian theropod (i.e., dinosaur) sometime in the Jurassic. Scientists will still be sure about that, even if they don't find out how the rangomorphs (soft animals) emerged 600 MYA. Scientists will still be sure that chimpanzees and humans had a common ancestor, even if they don't know how the first vertebrate emerged. All the things scientists have already learned about evolution will still be available, even if they don't know where the first living things evolved.

There will be plenty to learn about evolution 3 centuries from now , even if every scientist gives up on abiogenesis research. There will lots of laboratory experiments with evolution, using organisms collected in the field. One need not create the organism from scratch.

Scientists may not know precisely which species of nonavian dinosaur was the 'most recent common ancestor' of extant birds. They will still be looking. They may find all sorts of extinct birds, revealed by new fossil discoveries. They may be trying to tease apart the contributions to evolution of chromosomal genes from transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.

They will be worried about new organisms that will have emerged in that 3 century period.We will have lots of evolution to study that will take place in the 300 year gap. I imagine that the race between antibiotic resistant bacteria and antibiotic discovery will still be going. In 3 century, the prokaryotes may develop protective features that we can't conceive of right now.

As we wipe out species, new species will emerge. Maybe large species won't emerge in 300 years, but there will be all sorts of weird changes to microbes and the barely seen.

There are animals in Chernobyl that have evolved methods of gene repair in the 30 years since the accident. That is quite a big change for 30 years! Think of the changes in 300 years!

There is speciation going on today. Now, there won't be much innovation in 300 years. There will be some.

We will also be able to extract more inforamtion from fossils with our technology. New fossils will be discovered as we dig deeper and deeper for natural selections.

There is a lot of research to be done on evolution that has nothing to do with abiogenesis. If our technological civilization survives in any form, then the study of evolution will continue even after we give up understanding abiogenesis.

Hopefully, we won't give up understanding abiogenesis. However, abiogenesis is only the desert. The big main course is the study of evolution.

 

[jimbob]

All things capable of imperfect self-replication will change over time. The better reproductions survive, the worse ones don't. Evolution is just what we call it when living things do that.

Before there were living things, there were self-replicating particles. Molecules much simpler than DNA or RNA that attracted nearby smaller molecules and created a copy of themselves. The better copies survived, the worse ones didn't. After some time, the growing complexity made these particles "life."

Evolution is just the word for when living things change over time. Self-replication with modification is when the process happens to anything else. Abiogenesis involved essentially evolution, by another name.

I still have to revisit some old readings from my last swing around this topic a few years back. Nevertheless, the options as I see them are:

- Pre-biotic evolution; i.e., non-living complexity that transitions to biotic.
- Nothing else.

Meaning that panspermia and/or local systemic seeding among planets are just a shift in location, not fundamental means or process. What is missing is the ability to observe abiogenesis.

Abiogenesis involves a gradual shift from "dead" chemistry to "life". That shift would obviously involve the same principles and mechanisms that biological evolution works by - imperfect self-replication and natural selection. So clearly they are closely related. Of course, Evolution is not dependent on exactly how it occur (I favour geothermal vents underground) but abiogenesis is a part of the history of evolution on this planet.

Agreed with all the above

So let's say 200 years from now we still don't have a definitive account of abiogenesis, just a bunch of failed experiments and various theories without any consensus.
You don't think evolution theory would be harmed by this? I think it would catastrophic. Evolution is a theory that explains how life forms change over time. Of course it needs a plausible explanation of how life began in the first place. Otherwise, it's like what Skeptical Ginger said: You're trying to explain pregnancy without talking about fertilization.

It depends on what you are arguing. Evidence for evolution once life started would not be harmed. Take the worst case - we find an alien laboratory with identifiable machinery to create an ancestor of all life on Earth. Would that harm the theory of Evolution? No, it would just indicate that life was instigated by an intelligent agent.

The main problem with separating abiogenesis and post-abiogenesis evolution is that it's just a way of wiggling away from Creationist arguments that focus on abiogenesis instead of on subsequent evolution. I know those arguments are harder to really answer than the ones about post-abiogenesis evolution, but the harder ones need to be confronted and knocked down just as much as the easy ones do, or more, and merely trying to get away from them makes it look like they would be your downfall.

It's the same problem as with the recent attempt to redefine evolution in terms of "allele frequencies" just so there would be more examples to point to and say "that's evolution" even though you know perfectly well that it's not what people, including yourself, really mean by that word in any other context but the Creationism debate.

Inventing equivocations to act semantic-pedantic over is not a way to win a debate; it's a way to avoid it... which equals avoiding winning.

True - it also avoids the wider understanding that evolution happens whenever systems self-replicate with errors within a finite environment

It is done all the time. Their are many family where when the mother gets pregnant, she explains the pregnancy to the youngest children without explaining fertilization. One doesn't need to know how fertilization occurs for purposes of prenatal care.

A girl can't prove that she is not pregnant by claiming that she never had sex. She can't prove that she isn't pregnant by claiming that she never had sex. The belief in her pregnancy won't stop because there were no witnesses to her copulation.

The development of an embryo takes place the same way regardless of how the fertilization takes place. There are parthenogenetic lizards and salamander that have virgin births all the time. Their entire species consists of females. The development of their embryo is basically the same as in species that sexually reproduce. One can list most stages in embryo growth without knowing a thing about spermatozoa.

There is a theory that the human species went through a period of time when the connection between sex and pregnancy was unknown. In most animal species, neither father nor mother really know how fertilization is connected with pregnancy. A males and females can have sex without knowing how fertilization is accomplished.

The female will find it hard to ignore the pregnancy. She may not even know who the father is. Fertilization is an important process, surely. However, knowing how pregnancy develops and knowing how it starts are completely different.

If we never find out how abiogenesis first occurred, then we would still know how organisms have evolved. Abiogenesis may have occurred 3 BY before the first animal.

Animals with hard parts have only been around for 550 MY. Most fossils that scientists have studied come from animals with hard parts. We know some things about their evolution. Scientists are learning more. We know a great deal about evolution in the last 550 MY based on these animals. We are not sure how these first animals evolved because soft animals don't leave many fossils.

The origin of animals with hard parts is not important in understanding their evolution over the last 550 MY. We know there were organisms that lived before, but we don't know as much about them. Soft animals appeared maybe 770 MYA. Bacteria-like cells appeared maybe 3 BY ago. These soft organisms SOMETIMES leaves fossils, and they left genes in their descendants. However, we probably will never know everything about these soft organisms.

The knowledge we gain about evolution in the last 550 MY does not depend on how the hard animals got there.

Scientists are currently sure that modern day birds evolved from a nonavian theropod (i.e., dinosaur) sometime in the Jurassic. Scientists will still be sure about that, even if they don't find out how the rangomorphs (soft animals) emerged 600 MYA. Scientists will still be sure that chimpanzees and humans had a common ancestor, even if they don't know how the first vertebrate emerged. All the things scientists have already learned about evolution will still be available, even if they don't know where the first living things evolved.

There will be plenty to learn about evolution 3 centuries from now , even if every scientist gives up on abiogenesis research. There will lots of laboratory experiments with evolution, using organisms collected in the field. One need not create the organism from scratch.

Scientists may not know precisely which species of nonavian dinosaur was the 'most recent common ancestor' of extant birds. They will still be looking. They may find all sorts of extinct birds, revealed by new fossil discoveries. They may be trying to tease apart the contributions to evolution of chromosomal genes from transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.

They will be worried about new organisms that will have emerged in that 3 century period.We will have lots of evolution to study that will take place in the 300 year gap. I imagine that the race between antibiotic resistant bacteria and antibiotic discovery will still be going. In 3 century, the prokaryotes may develop protective features that we can't conceive of right now.

As we wipe out species, new species will emerge. Maybe large species won't emerge in 300 years, but there will be all sorts of weird changes to microbes and the barely seen.

There are animals in Chernobyl that have evolved methods of gene repair in the 30 years since the accident. That is quite a big change for 30 years! Think of the changes in 300 years!

There is speciation going on today. Now, there won't be much innovation in 300 years. There will be some.

We will also be able to extract more inforamtion from fossils with our technology. New fossils will be discovered as we dig deeper and deeper for natural selections.

There is a lot of research to be done on evolution that has nothing to do with abiogenesis. If our technological civilization survives in any form, then the study of evolution will continue even after we give up understanding abiogenesis. Hopefully, we won't give up understanding abiogenesis. However, abiogenesis is only the desert. The big main course is the study of evolution.

I like the highlighted part

 

[Fudbucker]

It is done all the time. Their are many family where when the mother gets pregnant, she explains the pregnancy to the youngest children without explaining fertilization. One doesn't need to know how fertilization occurs for purposes of prenatal care.

One doesn't need to know germ theory for purposes of natal care, otherwise we would have died off as a species long ago, but it helps.

A girl can't prove that she is not pregnant by claiming that she never had sex. She can't prove that she isn't pregnant by claiming that she never had sex. The belief in her pregnancy won't stop because there were no witnesses to her copulation.

The development of an embryo takes place the same way regardless of how the fertilization takes place. There are parthenogenetic lizards and salamander that have virgin births all the time. Their entire species consists of females. The development of their embryo is basically the same as in species that sexually reproduce. One can list most stages in embryo growth without knowing a thing about spermatozoa.

My point is that an explanation of normal human pregnancy is incomplete without an explanation of how fertilization occurs. If we had no knowledge of how zygotes form, there would be a big gaping whole in our knowledge of sexual reproduction, agreed?

If we never find out how abiogenesis first occurred, then we would still know how organisms have evolved. Abiogenesis may have occurred 3 BY before the first animal.

I cut off a lot, but this is the salient point. I don't agree. I think that if years go by, and efforts to replicate abiogenesis in a controlled environment keep failing, more and more people will assume it didn't happen naturally. I.E., there was an external cause (supernatural or natural). And once people assume that, they'll assume that same cause guided evolution.

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

If I understand Fudbucker correctly, then what he's saying is (and please correct me if I understand you incorrectly);

If we can't explain abiogenesis (which is a part of evolution, according to Fudbucker), then evolution can't be right.

This is patently untrue, because even if we don't know how life started, we can still say how it has changed over time.

If a woman can't account for how she got pregnant, then that doesn't make her not pregnant.

Life exists, and it changes over time. That's evolution. How it got here is an interesting question, but it isn't the crux of evolutionary theory.

Again, if I didn't represent your position correctly, please let me know.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

So let's say 200 years from now we still don't have a definitive account of abiogenesis, just a bunch of failed experiments and various theories without any consensus.

You don't think evolution theory would be harmed by this? I think it would catastrophic. Evolution is a theory that explains how life forms change over time. Of course it needs a plausible explanation of how life began in the first place. Otherwise, it's like what Skeptical Ginger said: You're trying to explain pregnancy without talking about fertilization.

That's like arguing we can't watch Star Wars if we don't know George Lucas. Or you can't vacation in Paris without knowing how it was founded.
Life exists, life changes. We can study those mechanisms without being entirely sure how it originated.

 

[Fudbucker]

Agreed with all the above


It depends on what you are arguing. Evidence for evolution once life started would not be harmed. Take the worst case - we find an alien laboratory with identifiable machinery to create an ancestor of all life on Earth. Would that harm the theory of Evolution? No, it would just indicate that life was instigated by an intelligent agent.



True - it also avoids the wider understanding that evolution happens whenever systems self-replicate with errors within a finite environment




I like the highlighted part

And it would lead to the natural question that, if in order for life to exist, alien intervention was required, was alien intervention also required to guide the evolution of life once it started? Once you go down the road of abiogenesis-caused-by-external-factors (either supernatural or not), it necessarily bleeds over into evolution. How could it not? How could you tell someone, "OK, maybe aliens had something to do with life starting here, but they had nothing to do with it after that!" Huh?

 

[Fudbucker]

If I understand Fudbucker correctly, then what he's saying is (and please correct me if I understand you incorrectly);

If we can't explain abiogenesis (which is a part of evolution, according to Fudbucker), then evolution can't be right.

This is patently untrue, because even if we don't know how life started, we can still say how it has changed over time.

If a woman can't account for how she got pregnant, then that doesn't make her not pregnant.

Life exists, and it changes over time. That's evolution. How it got here is an interesting question, but it isn't the crux of evolutionary theory.

Again, if I didn't represent your position correctly, please let me know.

This is wrong. If you can't explain abiogenesis (and I'm assuming a failure of explanation that spans centuries of experiments), then you open the door for legitimate speculation that external factors were involved that caused abiogenesis. That doesn't entail the naturalistic account of evolution is wrong.

But once you open that door, and people are comfortable with the idea that some other external factor, (aliens or supernatural) was required to get life rolling, you'll be on very shaky ground explaining why evolution is immune to those same external factors. There will be a competing theory (guided evolution) that will be almost impossible to argue against.

 

[jimbob]

And it would lead to the natural question that, if in order for life to exist, alien intervention was required, was alien intervention also required to guide the evolution of life once it started? Once you go down the road of abiogenesis-caused-by-external-factors (either supernatural or not), it necessarily bleeds over into evolution. How could it not? How could you tell someone, "OK, maybe aliens had something to do with life starting here, but they had nothing to do with it after that!" Huh?

Except that there are plenty of examples of evolution happening whilst being observed - Darwin's Finches, and the Long Term Evolution Experiment being two examples. We also have plenty of fossil and genetic evidence that doesn't require alien intervention.

This was also a deliberately ridiculous worst case. A realistic worst case is that we don't demonstrate how abiogenesis worked. We already have plausible candidates. These won't be undiscovered.

 

[Fudbucker]

Except that there are plenty of examples of evolution happening whilst being observed - Darwin's Finches, and the Long Term Evolution Experiment being two examples. We also have plenty of fossil and genetic evidence that doesn't require alien intervention.

It may not require it, but it doesn't rule it out either, and once you let legitimate speculation about aliens seep into abiogenesis, I think it will seep into evolution. Not on the micro side, but certainly on the macro.

This was also a deliberately ridiculous worst case. A realistic worst case is that we don't demonstrate how abiogenesis worked. We already have plausible candidates. These won't be undiscovered.

Yes, I picked the worst case scenario to make my point. I don't believe we'll hit an intellectual roadblock like that. But I guess it's possible.

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

This is wrong. If you can't explain abiogenesis (and I'm assuming a failure of explanation that spans centuries of experiments), then you open the door for legitimate speculation that external factors were involved that caused abiogenesis. That doesn't entail the naturalistic account of evolution is wrong.

But once you open that door, and people are comfortable with the idea that some other external factor, (aliens or supernatural) was required to get life rolling, you'll be on very shaky ground explaining why evolution is immune to those same external factors. There will be a competing theory (guided evolution) that will be almost impossible to argue against.

This is where we seem to be talking past each other.

I was talking about whether evolution could still work as an explanation without abiogenesis, whereas you seem to be talking about popular acceptance (or lack thereof) of (non-guided) evolution if abiogenesis isn't borne out by experimentation.

And to that I would say:

That can only happen if evolution and abiogenesis are conflated in popular culture, which is exactly what creationists do in order to make evolution look weak.

Because of that, it is up to science popularisers and scientists to make it clear that the theory of evolution isn't dependent on abiogenesis being true.

If abiogenesis turns out not to be true, and if an external force on the beginning of life can be detected, then I would expect scientists to find out if that external force had an influence on evolution as well.

I'm not beholden to the idea that evolution wasn't guided by any non-terrestrial entity. If an outside influence is detected, then I have no choice but to accept it, and I don't see why that would be different for the scientists who study it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not all "replication" is darwinian (eg crystal growth and prions).
Abiogenesis could have been going a long time before the first darwinian replicators appeared.

What are you calling a "darwinian replicator"?

The current theory is RNA molecules were replicating before abiogenesis. Are you calling the first RNA molecule the first abiogenesis?

Are you saying selection pressures were not acting on those molecules?

I recognize the difference between replication and the growth of a crystal. But at the same time, when an RNA molecule replicates, which they do by themselves without any other viral or cellular mechanisms, it has not been defined as abiogenesis.

This is a couple years old and I don't know what the status of the TNA hypothesis is but there are still some useful bits here:
In the Beginning, Before There Was RNA, There Was...TNA?

The other answer looks at the construction of an organism, and says that all of the parts and pieces came first and through selection pressure and trial and error, a functioning organism emerged....

True to their own evolutionary thinking, some scientists have speculated that there was a precursor to the RNA molecule, a chemical transitional species, if you will. Ideally, this molecule would have been simpler than the RNA molecule, and therefore easier to synthesize in an early-Earth environment. Yet it would have many of the characteristics of genetic material, such as nucleotide base pairing and a three-dimensional structure with functional activity. Yu et al. report in an article in Nature that threose nucleic acid (TNA) is a viable contender as a pre-RNA transitional molecule.

The point is not this particular hypothesis, the point is the concept that you can go back further than abiogenesis and the process still involves replication and selection pressures.

I supposed you could divide evolution theory up and call everything that happened up until life began is part of the abiogenesis stage and everything after is part of the evolutionary process stage. Both are affected by random molecular occurrences and selection pressures.

 

[jimbob]

What are you calling a "darwinian replicator"?

The current theory is RNA molecules were replicating before abiogenesis. Are you calling the first RNA molecule the first abiogenesis?

Are you saying selection pressures were not acting on those molecules?

I recognize the difference between replication and the growth of a crystal. But at the same time, when an RNA molecule replicates, which they do by themselves without any other viral or cellular mechanisms, it has not been defined as abiogenesis.

This is a couple years old and I don't know what the status of the TNA hypothesis is but there are still some useful bits here:
In the Beginning, Before There Was RNA, There Was...TNA?
The point is not this particular hypothesis, the point is the concept that you can go back further than abiogenesis and the process still involves replication and selection pressures.
I supposed you could divide evolution theory up and call everything that happened up until life began is part of the abiogenesis stage and everything after is part of the evolutionary process stage. Both are affected by random molecular occurrences and selection pressures.

Yes, why hamstring such a powerful theory for no reason?

By all means separate biological evolution, but don't limit Darwinian's concept to that.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

What are you calling a "darwinian replicator"?

The current theory is RNA molecules were replicating before abiogenesis. Are you calling the first RNA molecule the first abiogenesis?

Are you saying selection pressures were not acting on those molecules?

<snip>

I supposed you could divide evolution theory up and call everything that happened up until life began is part of the abiogenesis stage and everything after is part of the evolutionary process stage. Both are affected by random molecular occurrences and selection pressures.

Nice.

As common processes are at work, what constitutes life becomes even more apparently a matter of definition. What should we call it... the genesis of the encoding of progeny instead of directly replicating a molecule?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Abiogenesis is a necessary condition for biological evolution to get started. It's a fair tactic in a debate to attack X by attacking the necessary conditions for X.

No, not really.

Life is a necessary condition for evolution by natural selection to happen. How the life got there is immaterial.

 

[Slowvehicle]

The two are inextricably linked. Why do you think there are so many experiments in biology to recreate primordial conditions and get life from organic compounds? If it happens, it will be big news, because evolution theory is not complete without an explanation of how life began.

It's like that old creationist saying, "Give me one miracle, and I can explain everything else."

No, not really.

However living things came to be, the process of evolution by natural selection can be observed to work. Life itself is the necessary condition (which is why the "you don't see watch-pieces evolving into a watch" argument is so manifestly stupid).

 

[Slowvehicle]

I don't think biologists who believe in the standard account of evolution would be satisfied with a magical explanation for how life originated- Let there be life!-, and the discussion is about naturalism vs creationism, and whether going after abiogensis is a fair tactic.

If a natural explanation for abiogenesis doesn't eventually emerge (if experiment after experiment can't account for it), it would be a major problem for evolution. The door to "intelligent design" would get wider and wider as the failed experiments pile up.

I think one of these days fairly soon, we'll probably have some plausible evidence-based account for how life began. If I were a creationist, though, I would attack the failure to explain abiogenesis as evidence for intelligent-guided abiogensis, and then jump from there to intelligent design.

However biopoeisis took place, the observable fact is that evolution (by natural selection, among other processes) is observed to happen. The TOE does not address biopoesis, primarily because it is a separate issue.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Again, you can define evolution to only mean, after abiogenesis, and define abiogenesis as something else, OR, you can look at the process in it's entirety and see that the steps getting to abiogenesis followed a similar process evolving amidst selection pressures that led to abiogenesis.

It's like arguing that fertilization is not part of the pregnancy.

No, it's like arguing that the development of a foetus conceived the ol'-fashioned way is a different process than a foetus conceived in utero or in vitiro by artificial insemination.

 

[Slowvehicle]

So let's say 200 years from now we still don't have a definitive account of abiogenesis, just a bunch of failed experiments and various theories without any consensus.

You don't think evolution theory would be harmed by this? I think it would catastrophic. Evolution is a theory that explains how life forms change over time. Of course it needs a plausible explanation of how life began in the first place. Otherwise, it's like what Skeptical Ginger said: You're trying to explain pregnancy without talking about fertilization.

There is no such thing as a "failed experiment"; only disproved hypotheses.

Evolution by natural selection (and other processes, such as sexual selection) is observed in the wild, in the lab, and in the fossil record.

Even though we do not (yet) know how the first sets of ilving things (the first ones to survive, at any rate) came to be.

 

[abaddon]

No, not really.

Life is a necessary condition for evolution by natural selection to happen. How the life got there is immaterial.

Yes. Evolution does not address origins. Evolution only concerns itself with what happens after life is already existent. It cares not a whit for origins.

Creationists/cranks always try to conflate the two. They have no choice.

 

[truethat]

Yes. Evolution does not address origins. Evolution only concerns itself with what happens after life is already existent. It cares not a whit for origins.

Creationists/cranks always try to conflate the two. They have no choice.

And they think it's a stroke of genius when they do. It's their "GOTCHA" in their mind.

Meanwhile if they are looking at guided creation and guided evolution they have yet to explain why deformities happen. So divinely inspired perfection goes haywire every day. And it's just fiiiiine.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Abiogenesis is a necessary condition for biological evolution to get started. It's a fair tactic in a debate to attack X by attacking the necessary conditions for X.

Yes, but there is no doubt life exists. (haven't read the thread, I hope this obvious point has already been made).

 

[Belz...]

Abiogenesis is a necessary condition for biological evolution to get started.

Yeah but evolution works the same regardless of whether the first life forms arose on Earth's primordial soup, or on another planet, or in a lab, or by magic. Abiogenesis is irrelevant to biological evolution.

 

[ThunderChunky]

What are you calling a "darwinian replicator"?

The current theory is RNA molecules were replicating before abiogenesis. Are you calling the first RNA molecule the first abiogenesis?

Are you saying selection pressures were not acting on those molecules?

A darwinian replicator would be a self replicating entity with heritable traits that are subject to variation. A lone RNA molecule could be a darwinian replicator, people have created some in the lab, but those require very specific substrates. AFAIK, there's no plausible prebiotic RNA replicator that has been discovered.

There are at least two main schools of thought on abiogenesis: the genes first and the metabolism first. Self replicating RNA would fit into the genes first school, as would certain protocell models that are probably more plausible. These would fit with an early darwinian replicator. But the metabolism first side of the field thinks biogeochemistry developed into primitive metabolisms that were captured by protolife before genes came into play. If there's no genes (or primitive equivalent) there cant be darwinian selection, it would have to be a different type of selection.

 

[jimbob]

Except that there are plenty of examples of evolution happening whilst being observed - Darwin's Finches, and the Long Term Evolution Experiment being two examples. We also have plenty of fossil and genetic evidence that doesn't require alien intervention.

It may not require it, but it doesn't rule it out either, and once you let legitimate speculation about aliens seep into abiogenesis, I think it will seep into evolution. Not on the micro side, but certainly on the macro.

This was also a deliberately ridiculous worst case. A realistic worst case is that we don't demonstrate how abiogenesis worked. We already have plausible candidates. These won't be undiscovered.

Yes, I picked the worst case scenario to make my point. I don't believe we'll hit an intellectual roadblock like that. But I guess it's possible.

One small correction - you picked a bad case, no more progress for 200-years. I picked the worst case as far as natural abiogenesis was concerned - unequivocal evidence that life on Earth had been created by an intelligent agent.

It depends on what you are arguing. Evidence for evolution once life started would not be harmed. Take the worst case - we find an alien laboratory with identifiable machinery to create an ancestor of all life on Earth. Would that harm the theory of Evolution? No, it would just indicate that life was instigated by an intelligent agent.

And it would lead to the natural question that, if in order for life to exist, alien intervention was required, was alien intervention also required to guide the evolution of life once it started? Once you go down the road of abiogenesis-caused-by-external-factors (either supernatural or not), it necessarily bleeds over into evolution. How could it not? How could you tell someone, "OK, maybe aliens had something to do with life starting here, but they had nothing to do with it after that!" Huh?

Argumenon put it more succinctly than I did:

Yeah but evolution works the same regardless of whether the first life forms arose on Earth's primordial soup, or on another planet, or in a lab, or by magic. Abiogenesis is irrelevant to biological evolution.

I would argue that whilst evolution doesn't require abiogenesis to work, abiogenesis requires evolution to work.

 

[annnnoid]

This is wrong. If you can't explain abiogenesis (and I'm assuming a failure of explanation that spans centuries of experiments), then you open the door for legitimate speculation that external factors were involved that caused abiogenesis. That doesn't entail the naturalistic account of evolution is wrong.

But once you open that door, and people are comfortable with the idea that some other external factor, (aliens or supernatural) was required to get life rolling, you'll be on very shaky ground explaining why evolution is immune to those same external factors. There will be a competing theory (guided evolution) that will be almost impossible to argue against.

The question isn't whether or not evolution happens. Quite obviously it happens. The question is how it happens. What, ultimately, causes it to happen? It becomes much easier to introduce external factors (metaphysical or otherwise) into that process (individually and / or collectively) if they can be credibly introduced into abiogenesis itself.

 

[jimbob]

The question isn't whether or not evolution happens. Quite obviously it happens. The question is how it happens. What, ultimately, causes it to happen? It becomes much easier to introduce external factors (metaphysical or otherwise) into that process (individually and / or collectively) if they can be credibly introduced into abiogenesis itself.

That is looking increasingly unlikely. To overturn or even challenge the evolutionary explanation for the origin of species, one would need to posit something that is undetectable in its operation. Magic in other words. There is sufficient evidence for evolution working at all levels for anything else to be an utter failure.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No, it's like arguing that the development of a foetus conceived the ol'-fashioned way is a different process than a foetus conceived in utero or in vitiro by artificial insemination.

Your analogy doesn't fit reality unless you are arguing for Intelligent Design or creation of the first life form via magical conception and thereby trying to separate abiogenesis out, as if those two hypotheses are still on the table, it would be just as much denial as arguing we didn't have enough supporting evidence for evolution theory.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yes. Evolution does not address origins. Evolution only concerns itself with what happens after life is already existent. It cares not a whit for origins....

Again, this is merely one way to look at evolution.

If you were to find out the same processes, random mutation of molecules and selection pressures, went back further than you considered 'life', what then distinguishes life from non-life in terms of evolution theory?

 

[annnnoid]

That is looking increasingly unlikely. To overturn or even challenge the evolutionary explanation for the origin of species, one would need to posit something that is undetectable in its operation. Magic in other words. There is sufficient evidence for evolution working at all levels for anything else to be an utter failure.

Correct me if I'm wrong... but evolution merely establishes that this, led to this, which led to this, which led to this. It does not and cannot ultimately explain (just for example) what caused the beak of one bird to enlarge while that of another did not. Survival imperatives may explain why the fit survive, but it does not explain how the fit become fit in the first place. Thus...legitimately introducing some manner of 'inexplicable' factor into abiogenesis may quite credibly implicate evolution.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Correct me if I'm wrong... but evolution merely establishes that this, led to this, which led to this, which led to this. It does not and cannot ultimately explain (just for example) what caused the beak of one bird to enlarge while that of another did not. Survival imperatives may explain why the fit survive, but it does not explain how the fit become fit in the first place. Thus...legitimately introducing some manner of 'inexplicable' factor into abiogenesis may quite credibly implicate evolution.

Replication and transcription error in mitosis and meiosis. Look it up.

 

[Belz...]

I would argue that whilst evolution doesn't require abiogenesis to work, abiogenesis requires evolution to work.

I don't know. Life could have arisen but replication not be subject to copying errors.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yeah but evolution works the same regardless of whether the first life forms arose on Earth's primordial soup, or on another planet, or in a lab, or by magic. Abiogenesis is irrelevant to biological evolution.

The location of abiogenesis isn't relevant to either abiogenesis or evolution theory except to discover the mechanism of abiogenesis.

But in a lab or by magic are failed hypotheses that need not be entertained in this debate. Even if you hypothesized we can't leave an ET lab out of the possibilities it wouldn't change anything given said ETs would have also evolved.

It is time to stop the nonsense of considering gods or other magical processes in these universe ponderings.

We have a good theory for how life progressed after it arose. Why does it make sense that some other process took place before that time?

I think some people have been saying abiogenesis was a separate thing for so long it's hard to take a step back and consider we need a new way to think about it. Something happened and life began. When the switch was thrown, did the process of random mutation and natural selection begin? Or did it just continue?