Abiogenesis is not evolution

The confusion between Abiogenesis and evolution seems to happen quite often on this sub-forum, which is understandable because Creationists don't seem to understand that the Theory of Evolution has nothing to do with the origins of life. It only deals with the adaptations of populations to a given environment.

Now, what is Abiogenesis? It is a field of postulations, hypotheses, and theories about the origins of life. Originally postulated by Aristotle, spontaneous generation of life from non-living matter was a common occurrence. This was disproven by experiments done by Louis Pasteur. Nowadays, it refers to the chemical origins of life. One of the best experiments done to show that such chemical origins are possible is the Miller-Urey experiment, in which conditions of an early Earth were replicated to the best ability of the experimenters. Water, ammonia, methane, and hydrogen were all sealed within a sterile container. Electricity (to simulate lightning) and heat were added to the mixture, and a mere week later, a significant quantity of organic compounds could be found within the container. There was a lot more to this experiment than I've stated here, so go do your research to learn more.

My personal favorite hypothesis is biopoiesis. Biopoiesis hypothesizes that life evolved from self-replicating but non-living molecules.

Resources:

• Wikipedia article on Abiogenesis.
  
• Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations (TalkOrigins)[/url]
  
• Spontaneous Generation and the Origin of Life
  
• Miller-Urey experiment on Wikipedia