Abiogenesis - The Impossible Theoretical Miracle

I used to believe in abiogenesis and thought that anyone who questioned it was either a religious zealot or just uneducated.
Sometimes I would pity them and other times look down on them with scorn contributing their rejection of abiogenesis to willful ignorance.
In an effort to refute many of their claims, specifically the idea of irreducible complexity, I began to study cell components, proteins, dna, rna....ect.
Having grown up hearing the term,"simple cell" I expected that it would be relatively easy to explain how these cell structures could have come into existence. Slowly I began to realize that there is no simple, easy solution, and that even the "simplest cell" is amazingly complex.
For a while I was content to mentally separate, evolution and abiogenesis, arguing that you don't have to be able to understand or explain one without being able to do the same with the other.
This is still true to some some extent. One doesn't need to know how a car is made in order to learn how to drive it.
But one does need to know how it is made in order to claim to have a comprehensive understanding of the vehicle.

I no longer denigrate or mock those who reject abiogenesis or want to restore the connection between the two. There is no need to call them names, heap scorn on them or use cutting sarcasm. There is room enough in this world for opposing views and we have the ability to have beliefs or opinions that differ from others and still treat them with respect and dignity.

I no longer believe in abiogenesis, but maybe one day my opinion will change.....always keep an open mind.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Without thought there is no form. I'm starting to suspect that consciousness and the Universe are inextricably linked.

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: cooperton

God is right, science is wrong...

I never said any scientific facts were wrong.

I just don't reject science in place of religion
as a bunch of you tend to

That is an untrue generalization. I accept empirical science - I used it to make my point in the last 3 threads I made. The true tragedy is rejecting empirical science for theoretical science.

the true tragedy is substituting hypothetical fantasy for theoretical science. and pretending you know the difference. then again, it really isnt tragic at all because opinions have no bearing on reality. give a priest a choice between a bible and a parachute at 20,000 feet. there is no force greater than the laws of physics.

originally posted by: cooperton
The theoretical leap from a primordial soup to a living organism is an extremely-low-probability-event, otherwise known as a miracle.

They've already proved in a lab that lightning will make amino acids clump together.

a reply to: cooperton

Excellent OP, I have argued this same point many times here on ATS, but not as eloquently as you, but it falls on many deaf ears because of a certain type of cognitive dissonance.

Evolution in its totality as a scientific concept has no baseline foundation. The illustration of mechanical watch parts all being shook together for a trillion years would never produce a watch. Yet you need the parts to begin with, so you can even get to that stage. They will argue scientific semantic jargon labeling terminology to make their defense of this theory easier for them....I urge them to re-evaluate just how much abiogenesis impacts evolution.

Some scientific intellectual honesty would be a very positive step in the right direction on this topic.

originally posted by: Blue_Jay33
a reply to: cooperton

Excellent OP, I have argued this same point many times here on ATS, but not as eloquently as you, but it falls on many deaf ears because of a certain type of cognitive dissonance.

How exactly is it an eloquent argument to utilize a strawman fallacy as the center point of their OP? Using an example of archaea as it exists today and trying to claim that it proves that there was no possibility of a simpler,precursor organism is not a terribly rational or scientific approach to the problem.

Evolution in its totality as a scientific concept has no baseline foundation. The illustration of mechanical watch parts all being shook together for a trillion years would never produce a watch. Yet you need the parts to begin with, so you can even get to that stage.

Another pretty poor analogy just like the example of archaea in the OP. A more accurate analogy would be to trace the progression of tool making by hominids going back 3.3 MA Lomekwi 3 site in Kemya and crafted by Australopithecines to the Oldwan stone butchering tools made by H. Habilis to Mousterian tools crafted by Neanderthal on through more modern tool making techniques like Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age tools. Each new advancement in tool making was an improvement on an earlier design or technique. This progression from basic stone implements to finely crafted stone implements to learning to mine and utilize metals linear and took 3.5 million years to get from Point A through today. The same holds true for genetic changes leading to changes in gene expression. It's why our morphology is so drastically different from Chimpanzee and Bonobo despite our extremely close genetic affinity. The same genes in humans express themselves differently in Chimps and those same genes express themselves differently in Bonobos.

The watchmaker fallacy implies that all of the necessary parts were already in existence but it neglects facts like watches made today like my Tag Heur for example, aren't made the same way as watches were when the first time pieces were crafted in the 16th century.

They will argue scientific semantic jargon labeling terminology to make their defense of this theory easier for them....I urge them to re-evaluate just how much abiogenesis impacts evolution.

Why? They are two very different processes. One is a chemical process and the other biological. Why do you think they should be connected at the hip?

Some scientific intellectual honesty would be a very positive step in the right direction on this topic.

As would investigating the subject devoid of preconceived notions. Your approach to the topic begins from a point of doubting the science, not an open mind to the most current evidence available.

All the evidence over 10,000 years, with millions of different species, and not one species among the millions has ever indicated the slightest 'evolution'.

Perhaps flying pink elephants were around back then, too.

When I'm told that we were evolved from some kind of non-existent little puddle, which formed into more crap, that formed into ape-lings, and on and on, with more ape-lings, and then hairy-backed cavemen, and finally, they turned into modern humans.....


And not one species has shown the slightest change in 10,000 years.....


Go shove your bs theory up your arse, idiot!

a reply to: peter vlar

As would investigating the subject devoid of preconceived notions. Your approach to the topic begins from a point of doubting the science, not an open mind to the most current evidence available.

Oh I have investigated it a great deal and come to a very different conclusion.

One is a chemical process and the other biological.

See the video below

originally posted by: turbonium1
All the evidence over 10,000 years, with millions of different species, and not one species among the millions has ever indicated the slightest 'evolution'.

Perhaps flying pink elephants were around back then, too.

When I'm told that we were evolved from some kind of non-existent little puddle, which formed into more crap, that formed into ape-lings, and on and on, with more ape-lings, and then hairy-backed cavemen, and finally, they turned into modern humans.....


And not one species has shown the slightest change in 10,000 years.....


Go shove your bs theory up your arse, idiot!

it is really very amusing how people who scorn evolution continue to prove they actually dont understand evolution at all.

"not one species has shown the slightest change"

listverse.com...

www.popsci.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

www.cracked.com...

www.cracked.com...

a reply to: turbonium1

In Manchester Museum, England there's a barely noticeable framed collection of a species of local moths on the wall. People have been collecting moths and butterflies for centuries so there are tens of thousands of individuals and species covering several hundred years and from all over the world. This case has the 19th Century ones on the left and the more recent ones on the right. They clearly change from dark to light as time has moved on.

Most of the ones in the museum case were collected in Manchester during the 18th and 19th centuries when Manchester was a pit and mill town. It was one of the first places to become heavily industrialised so the air was filthy with soot and grime like Victorian London. The moths from then were dark and mottled so they'd blend in to walls and be camouflaged from predators.

The more recent moths are light and speckled and the earlier ones were very dark and speckled. What's happened there is natural selection and evolution occurring in under two centuries. In today's cleaner Manchester those dark moths would stand out on buildings and be eaten before they could reproduce. The lighter ones blend in and reproduce without being eaten first.

a reply to: TzarChasm

We live in a world where flat earth believers call other people idiots... LOL

a reply to: cooperton

Right, so:

You have zero problem with believing your little Deity is creator of all. But can't grok that life might have spontaneously begun? that is rather picky on your part. Because you have zero proof your Deity having created anything. Say as opposed to any other deity, group of deities, or nothing.

originally posted by: Kandinsky
a reply to: turbonium1

In Manchester Museum, England there's a barely noticeable framed collection of a species of local moths on the wall. People have been collecting moths and butterflies for centuries so there are tens of thousands of individuals and species covering several hundred years and from all over the world. This case has the 19th Century ones on the left and the more recent ones on the right. They clearly change from dark to light as time has moved on.

Most of the ones in the museum case were collected in Manchester during the 18th and 19th centuries when Manchester was a pit and mill town. It was one of the first places to become heavily industrialised so the air was filthy with soot and grime like Victorian London. The moths from then were dark and mottled so they'd blend in to walls and be camouflaged from predators.

The more recent moths are light and speckled and the earlier ones were very dark and speckled. What's happened there is natural selection and evolution occurring in under two centuries. In today's cleaner Manchester those dark moths would stand out on buildings and be eaten before they could reproduce. The lighter ones blend in and reproduce without being eaten first.

Did those moths actually evolve into a new species and back?

All that they did was change the relative population abundances of various melanisms based on Mendelian heredity and natural selection (that, and the fact that the moths in the display were cherry picked and not representative of the subtlety of the differences).

Also, those moths have an annual life cycle, so it looks like two genetic changes (if there actually was genetic change, which the data does NOT support), in less than 200 years/generations. Where is the Darwinian gradualism that is required by the theory?

Is it proof of natural selection and therefore micro-evolution, quite probably.

Is it proof of macro-evolution, absolutely not.

originally posted by: Noinden
a reply to: cooperton

Right, so:

You have zero problem with believing your little Deity is creator of all. But can't grok that life might have spontaneously begun? that is rather picky on your part. Because you have zero proof your Deity having created anything. Say as opposed to any other deity, group of deities, or nothing.

But the OP was not saying that life could not arise spontaneously. It was clearly highlighting the extreme improbability of life arising spontaneously.

Obviously the universe does actually exist and it temporal, so it must have had a beginning in time. That is self evident.

The idea that "nothing", the absence of everything, created the observed universe, is rationally absurd and so can be discarded as a possibility.

Perhaps the universe oscillates through expansion and compression and has actually existed forever. Again, the temporal nature of the observed universe seems to argue against an eternal and always existent one, and a topologically flat expansion (it doesn't look like it will ever collapse again) and distribution of energy, over time, argues against an eternal universe.

This pretty much leads back to the question of which deity created it?

Some deities are more likely than others.

Polytheistic gods are subject to the realm in which they exist and this leads to issues of the genesis of that realm upon which the gods existence depends. Polytheistic gods may also possibly vie against each other.

If then, a monotheistic, atemporal, omnipotent deity concept is the true one - then the other gods must be false.

So, it isn't irrational for someone to pick one for which they believe there is evidence. I know I have.

originally posted by: chr0naut
This pretty much leads back to the question of which deity created it?

Really?
That's a pretty big leap.
Do you infer a deity into everything you can't understand?

Abiogenesis is a poor theory, it's equally as poor as a deity.

Why can't we just dismiss 2 poor theories and admit we aren't smart enough to get to the answer yet?

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: Krazysh0t

You haven't really addressed the fact that entropy should have throughout the aeons reduced the Universe to a state of silence

Got the math to back that claim up?

originally posted by: chr0naut

Did those moths actually evolve into a new species and back?

All that they did was change the relative population abundances of various melanisms based on Mendelian heredity and natural selection (that, and the fact that the moths in the display were cherry picked and not representative of the subtlety of the differences).

You beat me to it. Even within the article itself it says "dark peppered moths made up 2% of the specie". This is an example of allele drift favoring the more camouflaged phenotype. This allele for a dark phenotype was already present within the population. Populations adapt with genotypes that were pre-existent in their gene pool, this doesn't mean that evolution created the diversity of life we see today. Such logic is a monumentous leap that strays from due diligence.

The idea that "nothing", the absence of everything, created the observed universe, is rationally absurd and so can be discarded as a possibility.

just for emphasis^

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: TzarChasm

We live in a world where flat earth believers call other people idiots... LOL

I mean this in the most literal, matter-of-fact way possible, but would you prefer "mutant" over "idiot"? That is what you believe after all. At least an idiot has a resolution - to seek knowledge - but a mutant is often doomed to his genetically deranged biochemistry.

We live in a world where the majority of people believe they are mutants derived from primordial goo

a reply to: cooperton

We live in a world where the majority of people believe they are mutants derived from primordial goo

That being the preferred logical explanation...having happened over millions of years

The other options being "poof" God did it...

OR

Aliens...

Neither of which have any logical basis... until we find proof of aliens

Though even in the most illogical cases such as above... 99.9% still don't believe the earth is flat

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: Krazysh0t

You haven't really addressed the fact that entropy should have throughout the aeons reduced the Universe to a state of silence

Because the heat in the universe hasn't run out yet and systems are actively provided with new energy on a daily basis.

originally posted by: Sparky63
I no longer denigrate or mock those who reject abiogenesis or want to restore the connection between the two. There is no need to call them names, heap scorn on them or use cutting sarcasm. There is room enough in this world for opposing views and we have the ability to have beliefs or opinions that differ from others and still treat them with respect and dignity.

I no longer believe in abiogenesis, but maybe one day my opinion will change.....always keep an open mind.

Abiogenesis is a hypothesis. It hasn't been confirmed, so calling names over being skeptical is silly, I can agree. BUT... It's one thing to realize that the origin of life is still an unknown in science and a work in progress that hasn't been definitely confirmed yet. However, it's completely different to lie and claim it's impossible or absolutely wrong like many do who outright reject it in favor of a religion / theistic belief (ie the OP).