How undirected is Abiogenisis?

[William Rea]

I am not a Biologist or a Chemist by education or vocation but I have an interest in TOE and Abiogenisis, particularly with regard to the wider religious issues. This was sparked by a comment from a Christian writer who asserted that Pasteur disproved abiogenisis but, I subsequently investigated and found that Pasteur did no such thing.

This immediately rang alarm bells and so, I decided that within the time constraints I have I would try to educate myself to be able to think away from this sort of nonsense however, I digress.

Is there anyone on here who is more specialist that can explain to me just how undirected Abiogenisis is? I don't have a problem with the mathematical probability but, I know that molecules and atoms can only combine in certain ways. This must surely stack the odds in favour of Abiogenisis particularly in terms of possible combinations with Carbon and Oxygen.

Does anyone have any further information?

 

[John Hewitt]

I am not a Biologist or a Chemist by education or vocation but I have an interest in TOE and Abiogenisis, particularly with regard to the wider religious issues. This was sparked by a comment from a Christian writer who asserted that Pasteur disproved abiogenisis but, I subsequently investigated and found that Pasteur did no such thing.

This immediately rang alarm bells and so, I decided that within the time constraints I have I would try to educate myself to be able to think away from this sort of nonsense however, I digress.

Is there anyone on here who is more specialist that can explain to me just how undirected Abiogenisis is? I don't have a problem with the mathematical probability but, I know that molecules and atoms can only combine in certain ways. This must surely stack the odds in favour of Abiogenisis particularly in terms of possible combinations with Carbon and Oxygen.

Does anyone have any further information?

One might say that abiogenesis is two theories, neither of which have any directional component. In its most basic form abiogenesis is simply the theory that, over a long period of time, life emerged from non-life; in other words, that whatever conditions may have existed on early earth, be it a pimordial soup or, which may be the same thing, Darwin's warm pond, the conditions were such that life emerged there. Insofar as it goes, most scientists believe that.

The other "theory" of abiogenesis is a theory of the mechanism of exactly how life emerged from those conditions. At the time of writing, that theory does not yet exist, all one can do is examine the various ideas or hyotheses, the evidence (such as it is) for or against them and then make a judgement as to the likelihood of that idea being true. No serious theory will be directional.

I prefer my own ideas on the subject but I have have a brief but critical review of some of the other ideas - that review is

http://www.sexandphilosophy.co.uk/pe07_theories_of_prebiosis.htm

Do take a look.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm not sure what you mean by "how undirected abiogenesis is." Do you think that the existence of the laws of chemistry is a form of direction?

~~ Paul

 

[Dancing David]

I am not a Biologist or a Chemist by education or vocation but I have an interest in TOE and Abiogenisis, particularly with regard to the wider religious issues. This was sparked by a comment from a Christian writer who asserted that Pasteur disproved abiogenisis but, I subsequently investigated and found that Pasteur did no such thing.

This immediately rang alarm bells and so, I decided that within the time constraints I have I would try to educate myself to be able to think away from this sort of nonsense however, I digress.

Is there anyone on here who is more specialist that can explain to me just how undirected Abiogenisis is? I don't have a problem with the mathematical probability but, I know that molecules and atoms can only combine in certain ways. This must surely stack the odds in favour of Abiogenisis particularly in terms of possible combinations with Carbon and Oxygen.

Does anyone have any further information?

The theory that the writer is discussing is most likely the one where Pasteur and others showed that bacteria, pathogens and flies do not spontaneously generate from pieces of raw meat. That is a term use of abiogenesis from the time period and different than the current usage.

 

[William Rea]

I'm not sure what you mean by "how undirected abiogenesis is." Do you think that the existence of the laws of chemistry is a form of direction?

~~ Paul

Sorry if it wasn't clear, this isn't my field. I was implying direction in that the building blocks of life can only combine in certain ways which means that the probability of life forming increases somewhat. I guess I am saying that the Laws of Chemistry increase the probability of life forming.

Just for info this isn't leading to an argument that an intelligent creator made the laws of Chemistry that lead to life. I don't believe in the creator concept on philosophical grounds - full stop.