Evolution and abiogenesis

[steenkh]

I often see people here and elsewhere who argue that the creationists are not entirely wrong when they think that abiogenesis is a part of evolution. One poster said that it felt like a "cop out" when we distinguish between the two.

I wonder why? I cannot see any reason why abiogenesis can be part of evolution, and I cannot see why we should satisfy those people who think they should be. I do not want to discuss science history, because it may well be that the two were once considered two sides of the same coin, but how the modern view is like.

As I see it, evolution is much more than just biological evolution. Evolution can be stated as what happens when there is an error prone duplication mechanism, and lots of generations. Isolation will then bring forward generations that have little resemblance to the starting. Life has such a mechanism, and the multitude of species is the result.

I do not think that we have other examples where new "species" have resulted, but I believe we have examples where errors in duplication of the Bible have resulted in new theology, particularly when translations are involved. So while we can think of other things in evolutionary terms, it would not make sense if we needed to know how the first generation came to be.

Besides, none of the terms that are used for evolution, like genes, or alleles, make sense in conjunction with abiogenesis.

 

[marplots]

I used "cop out" because I think drawing a strict line there (at first life capable of evolution) artificially limits our argument for no real purpose.

The creation v. evolution debate is about how we got here - that is, how the living things around us came to be as we see them now. In this conversation I think I should be able to challenge the idea of God as creator and would think it shallow if creationists simply told me that wherever and whatever God meant, that wasn't really part of the story - God's a given and creation only happens after God is around. But, I would say, "Doesn't creation depend on having a creator to create?"

Now, I know the objection is with how evolution as a science is framed, in that the subject matter only concerns itself with life forms capable of evolution. On the other hand, we don't shy away from adding chemistry or physics into the mix when called for. Abiogenesis is as much a part of the picture as element formation in stars is part of the picture for geologists and tectonics - it isn't exactly on point in explanations about how the earth's crust gets around, but it absolutely is part of the broad picture we have of the world/universe.

And I very much want an explanation that doesn't include God or creation. So, if a creationist says, "OK, you convinced me, evolution happened (as they do with "micro" evolution), but God created the first life capable of evolution." - I would reject that in favor of a naturalistic explanation instead.

I know we sometimes think part of the battle is defining terms correctly, but to me it comes off as uselessly anal to insist creationists get the scope of evolution correct when the larger picture is just as robust. If it actually answers the objections they have, why not "go there"?

Evolution depends on abiogenesis as much as planetary formation depends on gravity. You can't get the more advanced theory without the predicate. Frankly, I don't see why abiogenesis shouldn't be part of evolutionary science and I expect it will be the more we understand it.

ETA: I looked up a few textbooks on evolutionary biology. Of the five I looked at, all included something about the origins of life (aka "emergence" of life) in the table of contents.

 

[Aepervius]

"Evolution depends on abiogenesis"

Actually , no.

The fact life *existed* at all can have multiple reason, panspermia, abiogenesis, alien sneezing , magic, gods.

Evolution is *not* depending on the specific manner life appeared. It only model how it will develop and change over time depending on the environment.

Which is why your position is not good. Evolution never was about how "life" got there, it was always about how it continue changing. It never pretended explaining how life started.

And this is the big why , evolution and abiogenesis have nothing to do with each other. And that strict line is necessary to properly frame the debate.

"The creation v. evolution debate is about how we got here" well, see the problem is that it does not matter for that debate how the first proto bacteria came there. Whatever, you may tell it is god which put those proto bacteria there, I don't care. What i do care is that it is inescapable that creationism reject the billion of years of evolution which came afterward. It rejects our ancestry.

In other word, the hang over abiogenesis does not matter. It is an attempt of confusion by creationist (intentional or not). And that is why the two must be separated properly.

By trying to frame it as a "greater" top level debate you are making it a useless philosophical argument. Or attempting to hide the fact that evolution is what is rejected.

 

[steenkh]

I used "cop out" because I think drawing a strict line there (at first life capable of evolution) artificially limits our argument for no real purpose.

The creation v. evolution debate is about how we got here - that is, how the living things around us came to be as we see them now. In this conversation I think I should be able to challenge the idea of God as creator and would think it shallow if creationists simply told me that wherever and whatever God meant, that wasn't really part of the story - God's a given and creation only happens after God is around. But, I would say, "Doesn't creation depend on having a creator to create?"

I do not think we should redefine scientific terms in order to make them more suitable for debate with creationists.

And I very much want an explanation that doesn't include God or creation. So, if a creationist says, "OK, you convinced me, evolution happened (as they do with "micro" evolution), but God created the first life capable of evolution." - I would reject that in favor of a naturalistic explanation instead.

But, depending on how "God" is defined, the creationist could be right. And evolution would not suffer the least dent from that. Only the naturalistic hypothesis of abiogenesis would be wrong

I know we sometimes think part of the battle is defining terms correctly, but to me it comes off as uselessly anal to insist creationists get the scope of evolution correct when the larger picture is just as robust. If it actually answers the objections they have, why not "go there"?

I do not see why you think the larger picture is just as robust. I also think that there is no God, but I cannot frame this belief into a scientific testable theory. A credible abiogenesis pathway without God would help a lot in making my world view "robust".

Evolution depends on abiogenesis as much as planetary formation depends on gravity.

No. Why do you think that?

ETA: I looked up a few textbooks on evolutionary biology. Of the five I looked at, all included something about the origins of life (aka "emergence" of life) in the table of contents.

Good point, but I only see it as an attempt to show that we are not ignoring the subject. There is no doubt that the two are related: a naturalistic abiogenesis will inevitably lead to evolution, but evolution will happen with any kind of abiogenesis.

 

[ehcks]

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.

 

[truethat]

Self replication only seems complicated to us because we didn't understand it. Using Mandelbrot's fractals, he points out that it's actually a very simple and obvious thing and once we understood it we were able to create our own self replications in technology.

I think a large part of the problem is that Creationists conflate our understanding of how something works, with complicated or sophisticated "thinking" that in their mind is proof of a grand design or intelligent design.

When we consider the speed and ease of self replication and how evolution shows us how the same "thing" was reformed by environmental and other variables, the idea of abiogenesis really comes down to ONE atom being the start gate. It only needed one and then it took off.

It didn't need to be complicated at all. And the other myth is that it needed lots and lots of time. It needed time but there's no reason to think it's not a simple accident of the universe.

I also think Creationists often confuse "big bang" with "abiogenesis" Neither are necessarily dependent on the other even if one may have caused the other by accident.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

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.

 

[jimbob]

I was about to post on this subject based on this article

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016...ncestor-inhaled-hydrogen-underwater-volcanoes

Or New Scientist's take on it:

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...tor-of-all-life-on-earth-was-only-half-alive/

The 355 they found include some universal genes, such as a few involved in reading the genetic code. But others point to a very distinctive lifestyle.

One characteristic of almost all living cells is that they pump ions across a membrane to generate an electrochemical gradient, then use that gradient to make the energy-rich molecule ATP. Martin’s results suggest LUCA could not generate such a gradient, but could harness an existing one to make ATP.


That fits in beautifully with the idea that the first life got its energy from the natural gradient between vent water and seawater, and so was bound to these vents. Only later did the ability to generate gradients evolve, allowing life to break away from the vents on at least two occasions – one giving rise to the first archaea, the other to bacteria.

LUCA also appears to have had a gene for a “revolving door” protein that could swap sodium and hydrogen ions across this gradient. Earlier studies by Martin and Nick Lane of University College London suggest that such a protein would have been absolutely crucial for exploiting the natural gradient at vents.

One thing Martin didn’t find is genes involved in making amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. LUCA may have depended on amino acids produced spontaneously at vents, he says.

I've always thought that it was plausible to get error-prone self-replication first based on external resources, which would be subject to natural selection, and then systems that are more efficient at self replication, which would include the ability to seek or make their energy sources.

 

[JeanTate]

There's also a grey area, which is difficult to fully address directly with robust science: the transition from 'simple' molecules to 'something like a bacterium' (with genes, etc).

Whatever definition you give to 'life', it may be hard to pick 'the point' in that transition when 'life began'; quite a few, apparently sound, definitions of 'life' could be given, yet when applied to the transition, several may give quite inconsistent answers, and some may not be capable of an answer at all. Etc.

Then there's the potentially eye-popping discovery of 'life elsewhere', or 'other life' (whether fossil or living). That surely will not affect evolution - as a general concept (some details may be added) - but may radically affect abiogenesis.

My $0.02's worth ...

 

[abaddon]

Seems simple enough to me.

Abiogenesis deals with how life first appeared.

Evolution doesn't really care about that, it deals with what happens once life has appeared.

 

[truethat]

Seems simple enough to me.

Abiogenesis deals with how life first appeared.

Evolution doesn't really care about that, it deals with what happens once life has appeared.

This is why it annoys me when Evolutionists give Creationists the time of day in a discussion. It's fact versus fiction. It's like watching an astronomer debate an astrologist.

They always want to drag it back to abiogenesis as if evolution is flawed because it can't answer that. Why should it? It's an entirely different field of study.

 

[marplots]

I can see how it might be different in a formal debate where defining limits is part of the rhetoric. But the real debate we have with creationists is about natural v. supernatural, not just creation v. evolution.

Does anyone think creationists are trying to trick us by bringing up abiogenesis? I don't. It's deeply linked to the topic, especially when explaining history in terms of "what came before that?"

Suppose I was berating a Young Earth Creationist...
"Well, you say the earth is only 6,000 years old, but the evidence shows it is much older."

"How so?"

"All sorts of ways - we have the mechanisms which formed the very mountains and valleys you see out there, we have evidence from the decay products of long lived isotopes, we even have plant material older than 6,000 years."

"Yeah, well those things don't matter. Creationism doesn't include geology, physics or plant biology."

"What!? Doesn't determining the age of the earth rely on those things? Now you are being silly."

"Look, the theory of creationism only deals with God creating the earth and the consequences for our immortal souls - the pesky details you are trying to bring up don't matter. Please limit yourself to the book of Genesis."

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

I can see how it might be different in a formal debate where defining limits is part of the rhetoric. But the real debate we have with creationists is about natural v. supernatural, not just creation v. evolution.

Does anyone think creationists are trying to trick us by bringing up abiogenesis? I don't. It's deeply linked to the topic, especially when explaining history in terms of "what came before that?"

Suppose I was berating a Young Earth Creationist...
"Well, you say the earth is only 6,000 years old, but the evidence shows it is much older."

"How so?"

"All sorts of ways - we have the mechanisms which formed the very mountains and valleys you see out there, we have evidence from the decay products of long lived isotopes, we even have plant material older than 6,000 years."

"Yeah, well those things don't matter. Creationism doesn't include geology, physics or plant biology."

"What!? Doesn't determining the age of the earth rely on those things? Now you are being silly."

"Look, the theory of creationism only deals with God creating the earth and the consequences for our immortal souls - the pesky details you are trying to bring up don't matter. Please limit yourself to the book of Genesis."

If you disregard abiogenesis, you can still explain how evoluton works, and it wouldn't fall apart, because the theory of evolution by natural selection is not dependent on abiogenesis. It isn't merely a case of not taking it into account, but of not being a necessity for the theory to be correct/incorrect.

If you add abiogenesis to evolution, evolution doesn't fall apart.

Add geology, biology, paleontology and the like to creationism and it all falls down.

 

[steenkh]

Creationists are a bit strange because they propose a god that can do literally everything, but they still think he should stick to some rules. If the holy Bible claims that the world is 6000 years old, they feel it is cheating if God arranges everything to look as if it was older. You will never see a creationist claim that the fossils were put in the ground 6000 years ago to test our faith, although that would not be contrary to the scripture, and it would fir the evidence.

I still think that we should not accommodate science in order to make it easier to explain to creationists. And they will not appreciate the difference anyway. We have rock solid evidence for evolution, and mixing it with abiogenesis for which we have no evidence at all, but at most plausible hypotheses, will only whither away our advantage.

 

[ThunderChunky]

Creationists attempt to attack all of evolutionary science by pointing out that science does not know how life started. Sometimes they will even bring the big bang into the discussion.

 

[jimbob]

Creationists are a bit strange because they propose a god that can do literally everything, but they still think he should stick to some rules. If the holy Bible claims that the world is 6000 years old, they feel it is cheating if God arranges everything to look as if it was older. You will never see a creationist claim that the fossils were put in the ground 6000 years ago to test our faith, although that would not be contrary to the scripture, and it would fir the evidence.

I still think that we should not accommodate science in order to make it easier to explain to creationists. And they will not appreciate the difference anyway. We have rock solid evidence for evolution, and mixing it with abiogenesis for which we have no evidence at all, but at most plausible hypotheses, will only whither away our advantage.

I wouldn't discuss abiogenesis with creationists -but when actually discussing the origin of life, it is interesting that this latest research seems to point at a halfway house - having to rely on already present electrochemical gradients rather than generating them themselves.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...tor-of-all-life-on-earth-was-only-half-alive/

Seems simple enough to me.

Abiogenesis deals with how life first appeared.

Evolution doesn't really care about that, it deals with what happens once life has appeared.

I don't see why you have to limit evolution to living organisms. Viruses are definitely subject to evolution and aren't really living. I'd argue that prion proteins are a;so subject to natural selection. Similarly, I'd think that self-replication would have to come before life, and thus evolution would have to come before life.

 

[truethat]

Creationists are a bit strange because they propose a god that can do literally everything, but they still think he should stick to some rules. If the holy Bible claims that the world is 6000 years old, they feel it is cheating if God arranges everything to look as if it was older. You will never see a creationist claim that the fossils were put in the ground 6000 years ago to test our faith, although that would not be contrary to the scripture, and it would fir the evidence.

I still think that we should not accommodate science in order to make it easier to explain to creationists. And they will not appreciate the difference anyway. We have rock solid evidence for evolution, and mixing it with abiogenesis for which we have no evidence at all, but at most plausible hypotheses, will only whither away our advantage.

Exactly. It's giving young students the idea that the "alternative" to evolution is Creationism. It annoyed the crap out of me when Bill Nye sat down in a debate with a Creationist. How in the hell is it a "debate."

That's what I mean about, you wouldn't find Carl Sagan sitting down into a debate with an Astrologist. Maybe a one time thing.

But it's utter nonsense to sit and "discuss evolution" with Creationists as some sort of counter point. It's like discussing the space exploration with a Trekkie as the counterpoint.

 

[jimbob]

Exactly. It's giving young students the idea that the "alternative" to evolution is Creationism. It annoyed the crap out of me when Bill Nye sat down in a debate with a Creationist. How in the hell is it a "debate."

That's what I mean about, you wouldn't find Carl Sagan sitting down into a debate with an Astrologist. Maybe a one time thing.

But it's utter nonsense to sit and "discuss evolution" with Creationists as some sort of counter point. It's like discussing the space exploration with a Trekkie as the counterpoint.

The old saw about wrestling with a pig springs to mind.

I think *someone* should debate with creationists - just not scientists.

There are plenty of scientifically-literate standup comedians who would be ideally suited to it. They could show that a layperson is all that is needed, and they have the speed of wit to keep on top of gish gallops etc.

A scientist, or someone who is known as a science populariser is going to be vulnerable to some pointless question about an obscure organism - "how can evolution explain the mating habits of the lesser throated octowarbler?" for example. Aggressive mockery in response is probably the best approach but not a game that a scientist can play without looking like a bully.

 

[truethat]

That's actually a great idea. I realized the impact this had when my son started telling me talking points from the Creationist angle. It's so WRONG to make kids think they are two different sides of the same coin.

I know they THINK that they are debunking them, but as you point out, to a scientist it's ducks in a barrel and they sophisticated arguments just make a Creationist think they are being manipulative anyway.

 

[SelfSim]

Evolution as it pertains to biology, is at the moment, distinguishable from a generalised concept of Evolution.

There is no evidence for using Evolution's generalised principles (as in "what happens when there is an error prone duplication mechanism, and lots of generations ...") as a basis for Abiogenesis thinking.

In fact, there are 'pointers' which lead to a view that Abiogenesis' outcomes could quite easily be highly sensitive to initial conditions. Any apparent determinable characteristics, supported by biological Evolution's abundant evidence base, then also distinguish Abiogenesis as being something quite different.

The scales of any conceivable self-similarities when considering a universal Abiogenesis, are at present, unknown and indeterminable, and using Evolution to justify these is fallacious, IMO.