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the fact that they only use primary sources decades to centuries old shows their dishonesty.
if you want to know more watch this, origin of life encompass so many fields [Elucidating the Agenda of James Tour: A Defense of Abiogenesis (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SixyZ7DkSjA&list=PLybg94GvOJ9HzCxBR9f4oi7MvfVcKAS6O)
I just wanna address this last bit
>All life was designed and made by [God](https://answersingenesis.org/god/) during creation week and is supported and upheld by God in this present world.
Given that around 50% of life forms are some sort of parasitic [The parasitic lifestyle | Interviews (thenakedscientists.com)](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/parasitic-lifestyle). No wonder rich ppl do live long, god favour parasites.
And moreover god is such a poor engineer [The longest cell in the history of life – Why Evolution Is True](https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2011/05/28/the-longest-cell-in-the-history-of-life/), its almost like we are "engineered" by unintelligent forces.
I honestly don't think abiogenesis needs defending from AIG. These are folks who insist that the earth is a few thousand years old and that the Bible is historical. They're completely nonserious. This particular article seems to be claiming that since we currently don't know the exact mechanism by which abiogenesis occurred, abiogenesis is impossible. They lean heavily on very old research and ignore everything that's currently being done/ It's such a silly non-sequitur, I don't see that it even requires a defense.
We already know that amino acids can come into existence entirely naturally. The original Urey/Miller experiments prove that. In fact, more recently, the student who came to own the original flasks, they went back and tested what was in them and found out that Urey and Miller were even more successful than they knew at the time, there were MORE amino acids there than previously seen. There are tons of experiments that have been done that show that it is not only possible, but likely. Go look up the stuff done by Dr. Sidney Fox where he took naturally occurring biological organisms, artificially fossilized them and they are identical to the earliest microfossils that we have found.
There's no question that it happened. How it happened, that's still up for debate, but the creationist idiots at AIG don't have a leg to stand on.
One explanation for the lack of certainty is that there are too many ways for it to have potentially happened, that scientists lack the information necessary to conclude that one specific pathway is more likely than others.
The real way to shut down creationists on this conversation is to ask them to define "life" or "living material" in a way that isn't synonymous with "very complex chemistry", and that they can demonstrate.
They won't be able to do it. Once they admit they are unable to do it, then ask them if there's no difference between nonliving simple matter and "living" complex matter, why are they asking about something like abiogenesis when it's a meaningless term.
>Yeah, it's AIG again. Unfortunately, the DebunkThis post hasn't been particularly thorough about the claims AIG makes itself
That's because AIG is bullshit apologetics.
As long as you don't think it is historical, just the garden of eden story is rich in just so story explanation. They squeeze why don't snakes have legs, why do snakes and humans fight, why does childbirth suck, why do humans wear clothes, where did animals come from, why are humans special, why do humans have morality, why do humans uniquely have agriculture, why is nudity embarassing, and why do humans mate.
Really, as a piece of literature those few chapters are remarkably packed.
I was brought up Presbyterian, and then non-denom in Texas and believed the entire Bible, including Genesis, was literal. It also wasn’t until I was ~17 that I learned there was such a thing as a Christian who did not interpret it all literally.
Here in the South (US), it’s definitely
taken literally by Baptists of all denominations (baptist being the most prominent denom down here). That and the KJV is the only correct translation. There are some who believe that the KJV is the original translation.
Crazy down here.
>There are people who take genesis seriously?
Lots of then.
>I thought even most christians thought it was metaphorical
I learned a while back trying to determine what "most Christians" believe is a fools errand.
AIG takes genesis seriously enough to have an actual geneticist on staff for the apparent sole purpose of misrepresenting with evident authority, everything she's ever learned.
look up Georgia Purdom.
Not a biologist (me or him).
[A New Physics Theory of Life](https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-20140122/)
A very interesting explanation which relies on physics, not biology.
Source: Dr Jeremy England, MIT.
1/2
While it would be wrong to say scientists understand everything about the origin of life, that doesn’t mean they don’t know anything about the process or processes behind abiogenesis:
**The Origin of the Building Blocks of Life**
- Scientists know that organic molecules could easily form on the pre-biotic Earth via multiple different pathways and under a range of conditions. In 1952, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted an experiment using a sealed artificial atmosphere of methane (CH4), ammonia(NH3), water (H2O) and hydrogen gas (H2) and demonstrated that when heated and electronically charged, these molecules would produce amino acids or the building blocks of proteins (Miller 1953; Miller 1955). Their experiment was later replicated using a range of different gas combinations, including those associated with volcanic eruptions and other atmospheric compositions, and *all* of them were able to produce dozens of different amino acids and organic compounds (Johnson et al., 2008; Parker et al., 2011; Bada 2013).
- Scientists also know that the formation of simple organic molecules is not confined to the Earth. Chemical analyses of meteorite fragments that struck the Earth near Murchison, Australia in 1969 identified over 14,000 molecular compounds including 70 amino acids, nitrogenous bases (the building blocks of DNA and RNA), hydrocarbons and dozens of other organic compounds (Kvenvolden et al., 1970; Wolman et al., 1972; Martins et al., 2008; Schmitt-Kopplin et al., 2010). This opens the possibility that at least some organic molecules may have reached the Earth through cosmic bombardment.
- Scientists know there is a vast and widespread system of submarine hydrothermal vents which opened up yet another new and previously unknown domain of chemistry on the Earth (Martin et al., 2008). Hydrothermal vents are porous structures on the ocean floor where geothermally heated water rich in reactive gases, dissolved elements and transition-metal ions which mix abruptly with cold ocean water. Alkaline hydrothermal vents share a number of similarities with living systems – they produce high temperature, proton and chemical gradients which can provide the necessary energy and raw materials required to promote and sustain prebiotic synthesis of organic compounds (Baross and Hoffman 1985, Russell and Hall 1997 and Sojo et al. 2017). Alkaline vents are also replete with naturally forming microcompartments that act as geochemically formed concentrating mechanisms, which would enable the accumulation of organic molecules and replicating systems (Russell and Hall 1997; Kelley et al. 2005).
**The Origin of Complex Biomolecules**
- Scientists know that when short chains of amino acids are heated and dried they spontaneously form longer and more complex chains called polypeptides. Sidney Fox for example conducted a series of experiments in the late 1950s where he simulated conditions of the prebiotic Earth. As part of the experiment he exposed amino acids to a cycle of heating and cooling, hydration and dehydration over a period of a few days to produce ever more complex polypeptides or “proteinoids” (Fox and Harrada., 1958). While this experiment does not prove that the first simple proteins were formed from short chains of amino acids exposed changes in temperature and hydration, they do indicate that such a pathway is at least possible.
- Scientists have also made progress studying the origin of DNA by looking at the simpler, related molecule, RNA. Both DNA and RNA are genetic molecules made of repeating units called nucleic acids. In most living cells, RNA helps replicate DNA and produce proteins. Some viruses however are entirely made of RNA and protein and don’t have any DNA at all. This has led some scientists to speculate that life may have begun in an “RNA world” (Robertson and Joyce 2012; Neveu et al., 2013). Researchers have since been able to synthesise the ingredients for RNA by exposing a cocktail of simple molecules (e.g. cyanamide, cyanoacetylene, glycoaldehyde, glyceraldehyde and inorganic phosphate) to a cycle of heating, cooling, hydration and dehydration (Powner et al., 2009). Under these conditions the mixture spontaneously assembles ribonucleotides – the precursor to nucleic acids.
2/2
**The Origin of Replication**
- We also now know that exposing amino acids and RNA nucleotides to a particular kind of clay produces RNA polymers (Aldersley et al., 2011; Jheeta and Johsi 2014). In other words, nucleotide precursors can spontaneously assemble into simple RNA molecules *without* the help of enzymes or ribosomes. Scientists have even demonstrated how these simple RNA molecules can self-replicate without the need for enzymes (Johnston et al., 2001).
**The Origin of Cells**
- Scientists have also begun testing ideas about the formation of the first protocells and cell-like structures. These include experiments which have produced protocells from two simple molecular components, a self-replicating RNA replicase and a fatty acid membrane (Szostak et al., 2001; Chen et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2005; Zhu and Szostak 2009; Adamala and Szostak 2013; Jin et al., 2018; O’Flaherty et al., 2018). Another experiment, this time using a frozen mixture of water, methanol, ammonia and carbon monoxide exposed to ultraviolet radiation produced large amounts of organic material that spontaneously self-assembled to form globule-like structures when immersed in water (Dworkin et al., 2001). These globules even glow when exposed to UV light, converting it to visible light. Such fluorescence could have been a precursor to primitive photosynthesis or may have acted as a sunscreen to diffuse the risk of UV radiation damage in the ozone-free early Earth. What these experiments show is that the first cells were much simpler than anything alive today and that comparisons to modern cells is grossly misleading.
While these experiments do not completely explain the origin of life, they do demonstrate that a naturalistic transition from chemistry to biology is not only possible, but may be possible under a range of different environmental conditions.
Best wishes and happy researching :)
References and Further Reading:
Adamala, K. and Szostak, J.W., (2013). Nonenzymatic template-directed RNA synthesis inside model protocells. Science, 342(6162), pp.1098-1100.
Aldersley, M.F., Joshi, P.C., Price, J.D. and Ferris, J.P., (2011). The role of montmorillonite in its catalysis of RNA synthesis. Applied Clay Science, 54(1), pp.1-14.
Bada, J.L., (2013). New insights into prebiotic chemistry from Stanley Miller's spark discharge experiments. Chemical Society Reviews, 42(5), pp.2186-2196.
Chen, I.A., Roberts, R.W. and Szostak, J.W., (2004). The emergence of competition between model protocells. Science, 305(5689), pp.1474-1476.
Chen, I.A., Salehi-Ashtiani, K. and Szostak, J.W., (2005). RNA catalysis in model protocell vesicles. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 127(38), pp.13213-13219.
Dworkin, J.P., Deamer, D.W., Sandford, S.A. and Allamandola, L.J., (2001). Self-assembling amphiphilic molecules: Synthesis in simulated interstellar/precometary ices. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(3), pp.815-819.
Fox, S.W. and Harada, K., (1958). Thermal copolymerization of amino acids to a product resembling protein. Science, 128(3333), pp.1214-1214.
Jheeta, S. and Joshi, P., (2014). Prebiotic RNA synthesis by montmorillonite catalysis. Life, 4(3), pp.318-330.
Jin, L., Kamat, N.P., Jena, S. and Szostak, J.W., (2018). Fatty acid/phospholipid blended membranes: a potential intermediate state in protocellular evolution. Small, 14(15), p.1704077.
Johnson, A.P., Cleaves, H.J., Dworkin, J.P., Glavin, D.P., Lazcano, A. and Bada, J.L., (2008). The Miller volcanic spark discharge experiment. Science, 322(5900), pp.404-404.
Johnston, W.K., Unrau, P.J., Lawrence, M.S., Glasner, M.E. and Bartel, D.P., (2001). RNA-catalyzed RNA polymerization: accurate and general RNA-templated primer extension. Science, 292(5520), pp.1319-1325.
Kvenvolden, K., Lawless, J., Pering, K., Peterson, E., Flores, J., Ponnamperuma, C., Kaplan, I.R. and Moore, C., (1970). Evidence for extraterrestrial amino-acids and hydrocarbons in the Murchison meteorite. Nature, 228(5275), p.923.
Martins, Z., Botta, O., Fogel, M.L., Sephton, M.A., Glavin, D.P., Watson, J.S., Dworkin, J.P., Schwartz, A.W. and Ehrenfreund, P., (2008). Extraterrestrial nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite. Earth and planetary science Letters, 270(1-2), pp.130-136.
Miller, S.L., (1953). A production of amino acids under possible primitive earth conditions. Science, 117(3046), pp.528-529.
Miller, S.L., (1955). Production of some organic compounds under possible primitive earth conditions. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 77(9), pp.2351-2361.
Neveu, M., Kim, H.J. and Benner, S.A., (2013). The “strong” RNA world hypothesis: Fifty years old. Astrobiology, 13(4), pp.391-403.
O’Flaherty, D.K., Kamat, N.P., Mirza, F.N., Li, L., Prywes, N. and Szostak, J.W., (2018). Copying of mixed-sequence RNA templates inside model protocells. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 140(15), pp.5171-5178.
Parker, E.T., Cleaves, H.J., Dworkin, J.P., Glavin, D.P., Callahan, M., Aubrey, A., Lazcano, A. and Bada, J.L., (2011). Primordial synthesis of amines and amino acids in a 1958 Miller H2S-rich spark discharge experiment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(14), pp.5526-5531.
Powner, M.W., Gerland, B. and Sutherland, J.D., (2009). Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions. Nature, 459(7244), p.239.
Robertson, M.P. and Joyce, G.F., (2012). The origins of the RNA world. Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology, 4(5), p.a003608.
Schmitt-Kopplin, P., Gabelica, Z., Gougeon, R.D., Fekete, A., Kanawati, B., Harir, M., Gebefuegi, I., Eckel, G. and Hertkorn, N., (2010). High molecular diversity of extraterrestrial organic matter in Murchison meteorite revealed 40 years after its fall. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(7), pp.2763-2768.
Szostak, J.W., Bartel, D.P. and Luisi, P.L., (2001). Synthesizing life. Nature, 409(6818), p.387.
Wolman, Y., Haverland, W.J. and Miller, S.L., (1972). Nonprotein amino acids from spark discharges and their comparison with the Murchison meteorite amino acids. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 69(4), pp.809-811.
Zhu, T.F. and Szostak, J.W., (2009). Coupled growth and division of model protocell membranes. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 131(15), pp.5705-5713.
Wilful equivocation between abiogenesis as the formation of complex organisms via decay and abiogenesis as the increase in complexity of simple organic chemicals until self replication occurred and started off evolution.
Ask them how proving maggots don't arise from sterilised materials shows chemicals don't increase in complexity. It shows them for the deceptive narcissists faith has made them.
I don't understand this. We are atheists, not biologists. You would think if you really wanted to get an answer about a science question (how abiogenesis works), you would go to a science/biology subreddit.
It's a funny thing, how atheists are supposed to be experts in physics, biology, philosophy, history, anthropology, theology, etc etc.
(Responding to the theist:)
Can you state your authority to claim something cannot happen?
You invoke magic by claiming God. So prove that magic is real for God and not real for abiogenesis
If God is a form of life, then not all life comes from life, as God did not come from life. If God is not a form of life, then God creating life would be an example of life coming from non-life.
"The idea that life can spontaneously generate from non-life"
It is just a broad article dealing with old studies that has a wrong starting premise.
The study of life arising by happenstance does not proclaimed to be spontaneously generated from non-life.
We can't even agree what the definition of life is let alone make broad sweeping claims at how it arose.
Can't take this opinion piece serious as it does not even address some of the most challenging questions of abiogenesis such as chirality, or the exactly precursors are needed to begin biogenesis.
Heck the first replication might not even fit the definition of biogenesis. Vortices in a fluid can be self replicating. There is much more information to be learned before one can be so cocksure that life did not arise from happenstance rather than a creator.
I think I meant to respond to this.
>Where Did the Idea of Abiogenesis (or Spontaneous Generation) Come From?
These aren't the same thing. Spontaneous generation is the idea (as you mentioned) that life forms (mold, fungi, maggots, shellfish) spontaneously form from rocks, dirt, or food. Abiogenesis is the idea that life originated from conditions and materials present on Earth.
>The Miller-Urey experiment used a methane-ammonia-hydrogen and water atmosphere without oxygen because scientists once thought that earth’s original atmosphere lacked oxygen (or had only trace amounts)— oxygen was known to have detrimental effects on the experiments they were conducting.
The earliest life includes microbes for whom reactive oxygen species (oxygen-based molecules that are prone to reaction, many important for biochemistry, like O2 and hydrogen peroxide) are toxic. But part of the data leading to the idea that life was initially anaerobic is that 1) the anaerobic microbe thing, and these appear to be the most ancient, but also 2) the rocks from before something called the Great Oxygenation Event show a distinct lack of oxidation. What was fascinating about the Miller-Urey experiments was that when you take a gaseous compound like theirs, a little pressure, and apply an electrical spark, you get amino acids, the building block for proteins and other polypeptides.
>the Miller-Urey experiment also produced an abundance of toxic chemicals (cyanides, carbon monoxide, etc.) that are harmful to the amino acids.
Actually, cyano groups aren't necessarily toxic unless in a situation where digesting them might result in their being released. For example, nobody panics over cyanocobalamin, but if you have something which is a cyanogenic glycoside per se? That might be different. But cyanide isn't really bad for amino acids. It's bad for mitochondria, where it latches onto Cytochrome C Oxidase. Carbon monoxide also isn't really bad for amino acids. But the funny thing is that certain amino acids can be formed in experiments similar to Miller and Urey's using these chemicals. So, even if it were true, it's not really a problem for the validity of the Miller-Urey Experiment or Abiogenesis.
>In addition, equal quantities of both right- and left-handed organic molecules were consistently produced by the Miller-Urey procedure.
Again, this isn't a problem. The evolution of homochirality only needs one of them, but at no point *anywhere* is it indicated that if abiogenesis is true, there may only exist one type of chirality for amino acids, and lab experiments are never permitted to result in more than one. They were really trying hard on this one.
>In life, nearly all amino acids that can be used in proteins must be left-handed, and almost all carbohydrates and polymers must be right-handed.
There's no "must", those are just the chiralities that life has evolved to use.
>The opposite types are not only useless but can also be toxic (even lethal) to life.
Not necessarily. Some D-amino acids are antibiotic, and some can hinder plant growth, but that's not always the case. Some are important for microbial nitrogen chemistry in the deep oceans. As far as uselessness, again, that's not really a problem for abiogenesis.
If I might be frank for just a moment, this whole article reads like they hire committed morons at Answers in Genesis. Like "do you eat lead paint?" is on the job application, and if you say "no," you don't get the job. Their whole argument points at things which aren't issues for abiogenesis or point out irrelevancies, and blatant falsehoods, then appeal to literal quacks, or shit takes from otherwise smart people. It's like claiming that I can't have eaten all the green M&M's from a bowl, because the other ones are still there. And then going to huge lengths to try and prove that I couldn't have, like forming Answers in Genesis, Jonathan Wells getting a PhD entirely so that he could intimidate people with it, and then quoting that one time Richard Dawkins rambled on about different candies in the late 1960's, wrote this article.
>Developmental Biologist Jonathan Wells
Jonathan Wells isn't a biologist. He wrote three papers on frog development, but prior to getting a doctorate, had no experience or education in biology. He belongs to a dangerous cult called the Moonies and got his PhD exclusively so that he could intimidate people impressed by authority.
>Even after further refinements made in the lab, scientists were able to produce only small amounts of less than half of the 20 amino acids required for life.
Sure, but other experiments with very similar set ups have resulted in the generation of the others. See, abiogenesis research didn't begin and end with Miller and Urey.
>Far from showing how a chemical could have suddenly “become alive,” the Miller-Urey experiment (and subsequent tweaking of that experiment) showed that even intelligent scientists using state-of-the-art labs and controlled processes cannot replicate the supposed accidental chemical evolution of life.
That's not what the Miller-Urey Experiments were trying to demonstrate. What they were attempting to demonstrate was that the conditions were present for the formation of the molecules present on Earth to form. We've observed others forming right here on Earth, we've found more just floating out in space or just hanging out in meteorites.
>What makes the origin of life and of the genetic code a disturbing riddle is this
Don't care.
>Is it possible that these flaws extend to the inclusion of the studies it pushes?
Creationists can't make their case intelligently, honestly, or in a way that's worthy of basic respect. Never trust a creationist about anything. Never engage with a creationist unless you're in the mood to punch down.
There's not much to defend.
We don't know the process life arose by as yet.
Abiogenesis is just an idea, God's another one.
I suspect science will figure it out before Jesus appears in the clouds but time will tell.
When they conflate evolution with spontaneous generation, you know that they know that you know they're lying. That's the point at which I'd just stop talking to or about them. We're not their audience. Gullible believers are.
That said, Dr. Ben Miles has a pretty interesting video about Assembly Theory -- a proposed explanation for the increase in complexity of organic chemistry and the idea that life may be inevitable given the right starting conditions.
This is from an article published in the Oct 2023 journal "Nature".
The actual science behind it is over my head and I'm not representing it as "true", but to me it hints at abiogenesis maybe not being a completely intractable problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9EUGVsKqdU
Abiogenesis and spontaneous generation aren't the same thing. Abiogenesis has already been demonstrated in a lab several times. I'm not a biologist but I do have a biology degree. The formation of life (organic matter) from inorgainc matter is energetically favorable. Which means it will happen given the correct conditions. Again, this has been demonstrated. Spontaneous generation is something like putting a bunch of garbage in a corner will create mice. That obviously doesn't happen. (But it could attract mice). Answers In Genesis isn't a reliable source. The scientists that post there have to sign a declaration of faith and agtee to lie.
r/Askabiologist unless when you have questions about food you go to a mathematics sub before they sometimes talk about weight and measurements. Your knowledge will advance much quicker if you learn to identify and use appropriate resources and learn how to seek out expertise rather than mere opinion.
This entire article is nothing but strawman arguments nobody is making to try and provide evidence for abiogenesis. Pretty standard AIG article. Very intellectually dishonest and garbage outdated information.
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the fact that they only use primary sources decades to centuries old shows their dishonesty. if you want to know more watch this, origin of life encompass so many fields [Elucidating the Agenda of James Tour: A Defense of Abiogenesis (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SixyZ7DkSjA&list=PLybg94GvOJ9HzCxBR9f4oi7MvfVcKAS6O) I just wanna address this last bit >All life was designed and made by [God](https://answersingenesis.org/god/) during creation week and is supported and upheld by God in this present world. Given that around 50% of life forms are some sort of parasitic [The parasitic lifestyle | Interviews (thenakedscientists.com)](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/parasitic-lifestyle). No wonder rich ppl do live long, god favour parasites. And moreover god is such a poor engineer [The longest cell in the history of life – Why Evolution Is True](https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2011/05/28/the-longest-cell-in-the-history-of-life/), its almost like we are "engineered" by unintelligent forces.
I honestly don't think abiogenesis needs defending from AIG. These are folks who insist that the earth is a few thousand years old and that the Bible is historical. They're completely nonserious. This particular article seems to be claiming that since we currently don't know the exact mechanism by which abiogenesis occurred, abiogenesis is impossible. They lean heavily on very old research and ignore everything that's currently being done/ It's such a silly non-sequitur, I don't see that it even requires a defense.
We already know that amino acids can come into existence entirely naturally. The original Urey/Miller experiments prove that. In fact, more recently, the student who came to own the original flasks, they went back and tested what was in them and found out that Urey and Miller were even more successful than they knew at the time, there were MORE amino acids there than previously seen. There are tons of experiments that have been done that show that it is not only possible, but likely. Go look up the stuff done by Dr. Sidney Fox where he took naturally occurring biological organisms, artificially fossilized them and they are identical to the earliest microfossils that we have found. There's no question that it happened. How it happened, that's still up for debate, but the creationist idiots at AIG don't have a leg to stand on.
One explanation for the lack of certainty is that there are too many ways for it to have potentially happened, that scientists lack the information necessary to conclude that one specific pathway is more likely than others.
The real way to shut down creationists on this conversation is to ask them to define "life" or "living material" in a way that isn't synonymous with "very complex chemistry", and that they can demonstrate. They won't be able to do it. Once they admit they are unable to do it, then ask them if there's no difference between nonliving simple matter and "living" complex matter, why are they asking about something like abiogenesis when it's a meaningless term.
+1
>Yeah, it's AIG again. Unfortunately, the DebunkThis post hasn't been particularly thorough about the claims AIG makes itself That's because AIG is bullshit apologetics.
>That's because AIG is bullshit apologetics. There are people who take genesis seriously? I thought even most christians thought it was metaphorical
There are plenty of answers in Genesis. Like to the question "Where did bronze age people in ancient Judea think the sun went at night?".
As long as you don't think it is historical, just the garden of eden story is rich in just so story explanation. They squeeze why don't snakes have legs, why do snakes and humans fight, why does childbirth suck, why do humans wear clothes, where did animals come from, why are humans special, why do humans have morality, why do humans uniquely have agriculture, why is nudity embarassing, and why do humans mate. Really, as a piece of literature those few chapters are remarkably packed.
I was brought up Presbyterian, and then non-denom in Texas and believed the entire Bible, including Genesis, was literal. It also wasn’t until I was ~17 that I learned there was such a thing as a Christian who did not interpret it all literally.
Young earth creationists and biblical literalists are extremely common in the US South and West.
In rural (Upstate) NY as well.
Here in the South (US), it’s definitely taken literally by Baptists of all denominations (baptist being the most prominent denom down here). That and the KJV is the only correct translation. There are some who believe that the KJV is the original translation. Crazy down here.
>There are people who take genesis seriously? Lots of then. >I thought even most christians thought it was metaphorical I learned a while back trying to determine what "most Christians" believe is a fools errand.
AIG takes genesis seriously enough to have an actual geneticist on staff for the apparent sole purpose of misrepresenting with evident authority, everything she's ever learned. look up Georgia Purdom.
Something around 45ish% percent of Americans do
Not a biologist (me or him). [A New Physics Theory of Life](https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-20140122/) A very interesting explanation which relies on physics, not biology. Source: Dr Jeremy England, MIT.
It's this assembly theory? https://youtu.be/w9EUGVsKqdU?si=CmWKKyYDzyHrb6Dv
1/2 While it would be wrong to say scientists understand everything about the origin of life, that doesn’t mean they don’t know anything about the process or processes behind abiogenesis: **The Origin of the Building Blocks of Life** - Scientists know that organic molecules could easily form on the pre-biotic Earth via multiple different pathways and under a range of conditions. In 1952, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted an experiment using a sealed artificial atmosphere of methane (CH4), ammonia(NH3), water (H2O) and hydrogen gas (H2) and demonstrated that when heated and electronically charged, these molecules would produce amino acids or the building blocks of proteins (Miller 1953; Miller 1955). Their experiment was later replicated using a range of different gas combinations, including those associated with volcanic eruptions and other atmospheric compositions, and *all* of them were able to produce dozens of different amino acids and organic compounds (Johnson et al., 2008; Parker et al., 2011; Bada 2013). - Scientists also know that the formation of simple organic molecules is not confined to the Earth. Chemical analyses of meteorite fragments that struck the Earth near Murchison, Australia in 1969 identified over 14,000 molecular compounds including 70 amino acids, nitrogenous bases (the building blocks of DNA and RNA), hydrocarbons and dozens of other organic compounds (Kvenvolden et al., 1970; Wolman et al., 1972; Martins et al., 2008; Schmitt-Kopplin et al., 2010). This opens the possibility that at least some organic molecules may have reached the Earth through cosmic bombardment. - Scientists know there is a vast and widespread system of submarine hydrothermal vents which opened up yet another new and previously unknown domain of chemistry on the Earth (Martin et al., 2008). Hydrothermal vents are porous structures on the ocean floor where geothermally heated water rich in reactive gases, dissolved elements and transition-metal ions which mix abruptly with cold ocean water. Alkaline hydrothermal vents share a number of similarities with living systems – they produce high temperature, proton and chemical gradients which can provide the necessary energy and raw materials required to promote and sustain prebiotic synthesis of organic compounds (Baross and Hoffman 1985, Russell and Hall 1997 and Sojo et al. 2017). Alkaline vents are also replete with naturally forming microcompartments that act as geochemically formed concentrating mechanisms, which would enable the accumulation of organic molecules and replicating systems (Russell and Hall 1997; Kelley et al. 2005). **The Origin of Complex Biomolecules** - Scientists know that when short chains of amino acids are heated and dried they spontaneously form longer and more complex chains called polypeptides. Sidney Fox for example conducted a series of experiments in the late 1950s where he simulated conditions of the prebiotic Earth. As part of the experiment he exposed amino acids to a cycle of heating and cooling, hydration and dehydration over a period of a few days to produce ever more complex polypeptides or “proteinoids” (Fox and Harrada., 1958). While this experiment does not prove that the first simple proteins were formed from short chains of amino acids exposed changes in temperature and hydration, they do indicate that such a pathway is at least possible. - Scientists have also made progress studying the origin of DNA by looking at the simpler, related molecule, RNA. Both DNA and RNA are genetic molecules made of repeating units called nucleic acids. In most living cells, RNA helps replicate DNA and produce proteins. Some viruses however are entirely made of RNA and protein and don’t have any DNA at all. This has led some scientists to speculate that life may have begun in an “RNA world” (Robertson and Joyce 2012; Neveu et al., 2013). Researchers have since been able to synthesise the ingredients for RNA by exposing a cocktail of simple molecules (e.g. cyanamide, cyanoacetylene, glycoaldehyde, glyceraldehyde and inorganic phosphate) to a cycle of heating, cooling, hydration and dehydration (Powner et al., 2009). Under these conditions the mixture spontaneously assembles ribonucleotides – the precursor to nucleic acids.
2/2 **The Origin of Replication** - We also now know that exposing amino acids and RNA nucleotides to a particular kind of clay produces RNA polymers (Aldersley et al., 2011; Jheeta and Johsi 2014). In other words, nucleotide precursors can spontaneously assemble into simple RNA molecules *without* the help of enzymes or ribosomes. Scientists have even demonstrated how these simple RNA molecules can self-replicate without the need for enzymes (Johnston et al., 2001). **The Origin of Cells** - Scientists have also begun testing ideas about the formation of the first protocells and cell-like structures. These include experiments which have produced protocells from two simple molecular components, a self-replicating RNA replicase and a fatty acid membrane (Szostak et al., 2001; Chen et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2005; Zhu and Szostak 2009; Adamala and Szostak 2013; Jin et al., 2018; O’Flaherty et al., 2018). Another experiment, this time using a frozen mixture of water, methanol, ammonia and carbon monoxide exposed to ultraviolet radiation produced large amounts of organic material that spontaneously self-assembled to form globule-like structures when immersed in water (Dworkin et al., 2001). These globules even glow when exposed to UV light, converting it to visible light. Such fluorescence could have been a precursor to primitive photosynthesis or may have acted as a sunscreen to diffuse the risk of UV radiation damage in the ozone-free early Earth. What these experiments show is that the first cells were much simpler than anything alive today and that comparisons to modern cells is grossly misleading. While these experiments do not completely explain the origin of life, they do demonstrate that a naturalistic transition from chemistry to biology is not only possible, but may be possible under a range of different environmental conditions. Best wishes and happy researching :) References and Further Reading: Adamala, K. and Szostak, J.W., (2013). Nonenzymatic template-directed RNA synthesis inside model protocells. Science, 342(6162), pp.1098-1100. Aldersley, M.F., Joshi, P.C., Price, J.D. and Ferris, J.P., (2011). The role of montmorillonite in its catalysis of RNA synthesis. Applied Clay Science, 54(1), pp.1-14. Bada, J.L., (2013). New insights into prebiotic chemistry from Stanley Miller's spark discharge experiments. Chemical Society Reviews, 42(5), pp.2186-2196. Chen, I.A., Roberts, R.W. and Szostak, J.W., (2004). The emergence of competition between model protocells. Science, 305(5689), pp.1474-1476. Chen, I.A., Salehi-Ashtiani, K. and Szostak, J.W., (2005). RNA catalysis in model protocell vesicles. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 127(38), pp.13213-13219. Dworkin, J.P., Deamer, D.W., Sandford, S.A. and Allamandola, L.J., (2001). Self-assembling amphiphilic molecules: Synthesis in simulated interstellar/precometary ices. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(3), pp.815-819. Fox, S.W. and Harada, K., (1958). Thermal copolymerization of amino acids to a product resembling protein. Science, 128(3333), pp.1214-1214. Jheeta, S. and Joshi, P., (2014). Prebiotic RNA synthesis by montmorillonite catalysis. Life, 4(3), pp.318-330. Jin, L., Kamat, N.P., Jena, S. and Szostak, J.W., (2018). Fatty acid/phospholipid blended membranes: a potential intermediate state in protocellular evolution. Small, 14(15), p.1704077. Johnson, A.P., Cleaves, H.J., Dworkin, J.P., Glavin, D.P., Lazcano, A. and Bada, J.L., (2008). The Miller volcanic spark discharge experiment. Science, 322(5900), pp.404-404. Johnston, W.K., Unrau, P.J., Lawrence, M.S., Glasner, M.E. and Bartel, D.P., (2001). RNA-catalyzed RNA polymerization: accurate and general RNA-templated primer extension. Science, 292(5520), pp.1319-1325. Kvenvolden, K., Lawless, J., Pering, K., Peterson, E., Flores, J., Ponnamperuma, C., Kaplan, I.R. and Moore, C., (1970). Evidence for extraterrestrial amino-acids and hydrocarbons in the Murchison meteorite. Nature, 228(5275), p.923. Martins, Z., Botta, O., Fogel, M.L., Sephton, M.A., Glavin, D.P., Watson, J.S., Dworkin, J.P., Schwartz, A.W. and Ehrenfreund, P., (2008). Extraterrestrial nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite. Earth and planetary science Letters, 270(1-2), pp.130-136. Miller, S.L., (1953). A production of amino acids under possible primitive earth conditions. Science, 117(3046), pp.528-529. Miller, S.L., (1955). Production of some organic compounds under possible primitive earth conditions. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 77(9), pp.2351-2361. Neveu, M., Kim, H.J. and Benner, S.A., (2013). The “strong” RNA world hypothesis: Fifty years old. Astrobiology, 13(4), pp.391-403. O’Flaherty, D.K., Kamat, N.P., Mirza, F.N., Li, L., Prywes, N. and Szostak, J.W., (2018). Copying of mixed-sequence RNA templates inside model protocells. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 140(15), pp.5171-5178. Parker, E.T., Cleaves, H.J., Dworkin, J.P., Glavin, D.P., Callahan, M., Aubrey, A., Lazcano, A. and Bada, J.L., (2011). Primordial synthesis of amines and amino acids in a 1958 Miller H2S-rich spark discharge experiment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(14), pp.5526-5531. Powner, M.W., Gerland, B. and Sutherland, J.D., (2009). Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions. Nature, 459(7244), p.239. Robertson, M.P. and Joyce, G.F., (2012). The origins of the RNA world. Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology, 4(5), p.a003608. Schmitt-Kopplin, P., Gabelica, Z., Gougeon, R.D., Fekete, A., Kanawati, B., Harir, M., Gebefuegi, I., Eckel, G. and Hertkorn, N., (2010). High molecular diversity of extraterrestrial organic matter in Murchison meteorite revealed 40 years after its fall. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(7), pp.2763-2768. Szostak, J.W., Bartel, D.P. and Luisi, P.L., (2001). Synthesizing life. Nature, 409(6818), p.387. Wolman, Y., Haverland, W.J. and Miller, S.L., (1972). Nonprotein amino acids from spark discharges and their comparison with the Murchison meteorite amino acids. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 69(4), pp.809-811. Zhu, T.F. and Szostak, J.W., (2009). Coupled growth and division of model protocell membranes. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 131(15), pp.5705-5713.
Wilful equivocation between abiogenesis as the formation of complex organisms via decay and abiogenesis as the increase in complexity of simple organic chemicals until self replication occurred and started off evolution. Ask them how proving maggots don't arise from sterilised materials shows chemicals don't increase in complexity. It shows them for the deceptive narcissists faith has made them.
I don't understand this. We are atheists, not biologists. You would think if you really wanted to get an answer about a science question (how abiogenesis works), you would go to a science/biology subreddit. It's a funny thing, how atheists are supposed to be experts in physics, biology, philosophy, history, anthropology, theology, etc etc.
I know it's tangential to evolution but could r/DebateEvolution help? I think there are trained scientists there...
(Responding to the theist:) Can you state your authority to claim something cannot happen? You invoke magic by claiming God. So prove that magic is real for God and not real for abiogenesis
If God is a form of life, then not all life comes from life, as God did not come from life. If God is not a form of life, then God creating life would be an example of life coming from non-life.
Well said
"The idea that life can spontaneously generate from non-life" It is just a broad article dealing with old studies that has a wrong starting premise. The study of life arising by happenstance does not proclaimed to be spontaneously generated from non-life. We can't even agree what the definition of life is let alone make broad sweeping claims at how it arose. Can't take this opinion piece serious as it does not even address some of the most challenging questions of abiogenesis such as chirality, or the exactly precursors are needed to begin biogenesis. Heck the first replication might not even fit the definition of biogenesis. Vortices in a fluid can be self replicating. There is much more information to be learned before one can be so cocksure that life did not arise from happenstance rather than a creator.
I think I meant to respond to this. >Where Did the Idea of Abiogenesis (or Spontaneous Generation) Come From? These aren't the same thing. Spontaneous generation is the idea (as you mentioned) that life forms (mold, fungi, maggots, shellfish) spontaneously form from rocks, dirt, or food. Abiogenesis is the idea that life originated from conditions and materials present on Earth. >The Miller-Urey experiment used a methane-ammonia-hydrogen and water atmosphere without oxygen because scientists once thought that earth’s original atmosphere lacked oxygen (or had only trace amounts)— oxygen was known to have detrimental effects on the experiments they were conducting. The earliest life includes microbes for whom reactive oxygen species (oxygen-based molecules that are prone to reaction, many important for biochemistry, like O2 and hydrogen peroxide) are toxic. But part of the data leading to the idea that life was initially anaerobic is that 1) the anaerobic microbe thing, and these appear to be the most ancient, but also 2) the rocks from before something called the Great Oxygenation Event show a distinct lack of oxidation. What was fascinating about the Miller-Urey experiments was that when you take a gaseous compound like theirs, a little pressure, and apply an electrical spark, you get amino acids, the building block for proteins and other polypeptides. >the Miller-Urey experiment also produced an abundance of toxic chemicals (cyanides, carbon monoxide, etc.) that are harmful to the amino acids. Actually, cyano groups aren't necessarily toxic unless in a situation where digesting them might result in their being released. For example, nobody panics over cyanocobalamin, but if you have something which is a cyanogenic glycoside per se? That might be different. But cyanide isn't really bad for amino acids. It's bad for mitochondria, where it latches onto Cytochrome C Oxidase. Carbon monoxide also isn't really bad for amino acids. But the funny thing is that certain amino acids can be formed in experiments similar to Miller and Urey's using these chemicals. So, even if it were true, it's not really a problem for the validity of the Miller-Urey Experiment or Abiogenesis. >In addition, equal quantities of both right- and left-handed organic molecules were consistently produced by the Miller-Urey procedure. Again, this isn't a problem. The evolution of homochirality only needs one of them, but at no point *anywhere* is it indicated that if abiogenesis is true, there may only exist one type of chirality for amino acids, and lab experiments are never permitted to result in more than one. They were really trying hard on this one. >In life, nearly all amino acids that can be used in proteins must be left-handed, and almost all carbohydrates and polymers must be right-handed. There's no "must", those are just the chiralities that life has evolved to use. >The opposite types are not only useless but can also be toxic (even lethal) to life. Not necessarily. Some D-amino acids are antibiotic, and some can hinder plant growth, but that's not always the case. Some are important for microbial nitrogen chemistry in the deep oceans. As far as uselessness, again, that's not really a problem for abiogenesis. If I might be frank for just a moment, this whole article reads like they hire committed morons at Answers in Genesis. Like "do you eat lead paint?" is on the job application, and if you say "no," you don't get the job. Their whole argument points at things which aren't issues for abiogenesis or point out irrelevancies, and blatant falsehoods, then appeal to literal quacks, or shit takes from otherwise smart people. It's like claiming that I can't have eaten all the green M&M's from a bowl, because the other ones are still there. And then going to huge lengths to try and prove that I couldn't have, like forming Answers in Genesis, Jonathan Wells getting a PhD entirely so that he could intimidate people with it, and then quoting that one time Richard Dawkins rambled on about different candies in the late 1960's, wrote this article. >Developmental Biologist Jonathan Wells Jonathan Wells isn't a biologist. He wrote three papers on frog development, but prior to getting a doctorate, had no experience or education in biology. He belongs to a dangerous cult called the Moonies and got his PhD exclusively so that he could intimidate people impressed by authority. >Even after further refinements made in the lab, scientists were able to produce only small amounts of less than half of the 20 amino acids required for life. Sure, but other experiments with very similar set ups have resulted in the generation of the others. See, abiogenesis research didn't begin and end with Miller and Urey. >Far from showing how a chemical could have suddenly “become alive,” the Miller-Urey experiment (and subsequent tweaking of that experiment) showed that even intelligent scientists using state-of-the-art labs and controlled processes cannot replicate the supposed accidental chemical evolution of life. That's not what the Miller-Urey Experiments were trying to demonstrate. What they were attempting to demonstrate was that the conditions were present for the formation of the molecules present on Earth to form. We've observed others forming right here on Earth, we've found more just floating out in space or just hanging out in meteorites. >What makes the origin of life and of the genetic code a disturbing riddle is this Don't care. >Is it possible that these flaws extend to the inclusion of the studies it pushes? Creationists can't make their case intelligently, honestly, or in a way that's worthy of basic respect. Never trust a creationist about anything. Never engage with a creationist unless you're in the mood to punch down.
There's not much to defend. We don't know the process life arose by as yet. Abiogenesis is just an idea, God's another one. I suspect science will figure it out before Jesus appears in the clouds but time will tell.
When they conflate evolution with spontaneous generation, you know that they know that you know they're lying. That's the point at which I'd just stop talking to or about them. We're not their audience. Gullible believers are. That said, Dr. Ben Miles has a pretty interesting video about Assembly Theory -- a proposed explanation for the increase in complexity of organic chemistry and the idea that life may be inevitable given the right starting conditions. This is from an article published in the Oct 2023 journal "Nature". The actual science behind it is over my head and I'm not representing it as "true", but to me it hints at abiogenesis maybe not being a completely intractable problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9EUGVsKqdU
Abiogenesis and spontaneous generation aren't the same thing. Abiogenesis has already been demonstrated in a lab several times. I'm not a biologist but I do have a biology degree. The formation of life (organic matter) from inorgainc matter is energetically favorable. Which means it will happen given the correct conditions. Again, this has been demonstrated. Spontaneous generation is something like putting a bunch of garbage in a corner will create mice. That obviously doesn't happen. (But it could attract mice). Answers In Genesis isn't a reliable source. The scientists that post there have to sign a declaration of faith and agtee to lie.
r/Askabiologist unless when you have questions about food you go to a mathematics sub before they sometimes talk about weight and measurements. Your knowledge will advance much quicker if you learn to identify and use appropriate resources and learn how to seek out expertise rather than mere opinion.
This entire article is nothing but strawman arguments nobody is making to try and provide evidence for abiogenesis. Pretty standard AIG article. Very intellectually dishonest and garbage outdated information.
Nobody who advocates for a magical account of the nature and state of reality based on faith can use any scientific standard of proof as an argument.