Evolution and abiogenesis

[jimbob]

Unless you've got your foot in the door via exotic abiogenesis. If speculation about aliens seeding life is taken seriously, then speculation that aliens seeded life AND guided it at certain points to produce intelligent beings like us would seem to be legit speculation as well, and that's where the damage to evolution theory comes in.

At the moment there is sufficient evidence to say that whilst the exact mechanism of abiogenesis is not known, the broad outline is already pretty clear - over hundreds of millions of years, simple compounds (like carbon monoxide, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, phosphates, and water) reacted to form more complex organic compounds due to the formation of free radicals from UV light, radiation and lightning. Some of the compounds formed would include amino acids and proteins, and in at least one location, groups of them collected in such a way that the whole collection was able to duplicate itself within the surrounding "soup".

That is why I said that one would actually need unequivocal evidence of manufacture in order to alter this narrative. An alien lab, 3.8-billion years old with machinery to make simple life would fit this requirement.

 

[jimbob]

If the two theories were "entirely separate", there wouldn't be a direct causal chain that links the two. As someone earlier pointed out, when evolution is mentioned in biology textbooks, abiogenesis is also mentioned. Evolution is just a subset of an overarching theory of life that includes abiogenesis, evolution, germ theory, sexual reproduction, etc. (I think this was brought up by another poster).

Your point about aliens needing to have evolved from somewhere else is relevant.

I'd disagree - abiogenesis is a subset of evolution*, not the other way round.



*any plausible explanation of abiogenesis will be, anyway although implausible explanations of abiogenesis are not limited in this way.

 

[Fudbucker]

I'd disagree - abiogenesis is a subset of evolution*, not the other way round.

I would agree with this, which is you can't separate the two. It would be like trying to explain how the eye works without knowing what rods and cones do. Yes, you would have a partial picture of pupils dilating and lenses bending light and focusing it on the retina, but the story would be incomplete.

 

[jimbob]

I would agree with this, which is you can't separate the two. It would be like trying to explain how the eye works without knowing what rods and cones do. Yes, you would have a partial picture of pupils dilating and lenses bending light and focusing it on the retina, but the story would be incomplete.

Not quite - if, for example you are only interested in events after unicellular life arose, then you can ignore abiogenesis.

If you are interested in how life arose, you can't ignore evolution - even if you stop as soon as you get to something that is defined as "life".

 

[Slowvehicle]

AFAIK, intelligent design theories don't posit that natural selection doesn't occur or that evolution "didn't happen". They say that at certain points, where natural selection would have produced organism X, outside intervention happened to produce organism Y. In other words, how do you know it was a cosmic ray that produced a mutation and not an alien mutation gun?

Might you explain what this has to do with conflating biopoesis and evolution by natural selection (and other selective pressures)?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Not quite - if, for example you are only interested in events after unicellular life arose, then you can ignore abiogenesis.

If you are interested in how life arose, you can't ignore evolution - even if you stop as soon as you get to something that is defined as "life".

QFT

 

[Hlafordlaes]

I'd disagree - abiogenesis is a subset of evolution*, not the other way round.

Not quite - if, for example you are only interested in events after unicellular life arose, then you can ignore abiogenesis.

If you are interested in how life arose, you can't ignore evolution - even if you stop as soon as you get to something that is defined as "life".

That's the ticket.

 

[Fudbucker]

Not quite - if, for example you are only interested in events after unicellular life arose, then you can ignore abiogenesis.

Sure, you can ignore it, if you're totally fixated on evolution to the exclusion of all else. It would be like studying stellar evolution and not caring about the Big Bang. But other interested parties are going to want the complete story, which begins with the first lifeforms, how they arose, and how they changed over time to become what they are. Evolution is a causal chain leading backwards to the inevitable question: How did life arise? Do you think there exists a Biology textbook that mentions evolution but ignores abiogenesis?

If you are interested in how life arose, you can't ignore evolution - even if you stop as soon as you get to something that is defined as "life".

I never said you could ignore evolution. It is obviously part of the story. My claim is that abiogenesis is also part of the story, and cannot be ignored, and for practical purposes isn't ignored- there's a lot of science going on trying to figure out how life first arose.

 

[Belz...]

Not quite - if, for example you are only interested in events after unicellular life arose, then you can ignore abiogenesis.

If you are interested in how life arose, you can't ignore evolution - even if you stop as soon as you get to something that is defined as "life".

Well, you can ignore it if the only thing you're interested in is the first act.

 

[ThunderChunky]

Taking this point of view, "a self replicating entity with heritable traits that are subject to variation," how does that differ from a self replicating molecule with heritable traits that are subject to variation?

Like I said, it could be a molecule (however improbable), but you are assuming such a thing existed. Darwinian selection may have been the end of abiogenesis and not the beginning.

Sent from my VS880 using Tapatalk

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... I'm not sure where the communication breakdown lies between us. ...

I am. I'm talking about defining evolution and abiogenesis to suit either argument, they are separate things, or, they are not.

And you keep insisting that they could be separate, something I am not arguing against.

I then go on to say a continuum is a better evidence supported hypothesis than two separate events and you aren't supporting why you think separate is an equally likely hypothesis except to say, it could be.

Upon what evidence are you supporting your 'it could be' hypothesis? Because I am not arguing against the premise that theoretically they could be different processes.

I am however, arguing there is evidence supporting the continuum hypothesis and no evidence supporting the separate events hypothesis.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What some of you are saying is that this would be convincing to a person:
"Look, we have no idea how life started. We've been at it for forever and we keep coming up short. Every attempt to create life in the lab has failed. Maybe aliens really did seed the planet. BUT we are absolutely sure about what happened once life got started, and we know no aliens were involved."

Isn't there some tension going on between those two claims?

I don't see any posts saying this. You sadly underestimate the progress of research in abiogenesis.

Are you of the opinion we should still keep the god hypothesis option open?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Abiogenesis has one answer. There is only one real answer that will ever be. "We don't know." Period the end.

 

[abaddon]

I am. I'm talking about defining evolution and abiogenesis to suit either argument, they are separate things, or, they are not.

And you keep insisting that they could be separate, something I am not arguing against.

I then go on to say a continuum is a better evidence supported hypothesis than two separate events and you aren't supporting why you think separate is an equally likely hypothesis except to say, it could be.

Upon what evidence are you supporting your 'it could be' hypothesis? Because I am not arguing against the premise that theoretically they could be different processes.

I am however, arguing there is evidence supporting the continuum hypothesis and no evidence supporting the separate events hypothesis.

Personally, I go with the continuum. Nevertheless, it matters not whether it was happy coincidence, goddidit, or pixies with magic fairy dust, evolution proceeds regardless

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Again: claiming that a pregnancy was "miraculous", or the result of advanced lab technology, or the result of unskilled labor does not change the fact of the pregnancy, or the foetus develops. Not knowing which of the above caused the pregnancy does not make the pregnancy go away...

Not knowing which of the possible avenues of biopoesis actually led to life on this planet does not change the observable facts of evolution by natural selection; nor does it make evolution "didn't happen".

Why do you think I am arguing against this? Could you find my post where I said there cannot be two separate processes with a clear divide?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

AFAIK, intelligent design theories don't posit that natural selection doesn't occur or that evolution "didn't happen". They say that at certain points, where natural selection would have produced organism X, outside intervention happened to produce organism Y. In other words, how do you know it was a cosmic ray that produced a mutation and not an alien mutation gun?

Irreducible complexity is a failed hypothesis.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

We do have the answers to those, so your comment is stupid and irrelevant.

We cannot see the moment of abiogensis. We can theorize about it but it is impossible to know or to prove. So making up **** and calling it science is just as stupid as making up **** and calling it God or aliens or whatever.

We don't know and we will never know. Instead, we should spend our energies on things we can examine and study as most scientists actually do.

Do you know how a theory works? Did you know that no theory in science is ever technically described as a fact. Even facts like, the Earth is not flat, are not technically considered facts in the scientific process.

Rather we say the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion, and we sometimes assign the status of 'fact' because it is convenient to do so.

The idea "we will never know" is never used in science, because there is no way to ascertain what we will never know. Even the claim we can't know what happened before the Big Bang or outside the Universe has a caveat that the current state of available evidence could change.

You are applying a special status to knowledge about abiogenesis that science does not apply to the process. It doesn't even belong in the Big Bang or outside the Universe category of can't know because we can't obtain any evidence from those conditions.

There is no reason to think we will not at some point accumulate overwhelming evidence as to how abiogenesis on Earth occurred.

 

[Fudbucker]

Irreducible complexity is a failed hypothesis.

I never said it wasn't.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Like I said, it could be a molecule (however improbable), but you are assuming such a thing existed. Darwinian selection may have been the end of abiogenesis and not the beginning.

What you call my assumptions, I call the best explanation for the evidence.

Is a prion or a virus alive? Is the question settled?

Does it not suggest evolution is on a continuum from non-life to life with no clear place the division occurs?

Even if you define life and draw your line on the continuum, is there evidence the mechanisms by which change occurs (random mutation and selection pressures) are different on either side of the line?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Personally, I go with the continuum. Nevertheless, it matters not whether it was happy coincidence, goddidit, or pixies with magic fairy dust, evolution proceeds regardless

Of course. And that begs the question, what preceded evolution and is there a clear division with process A preceding evolution which occurs by process B?