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Revision as of 00:34, 8 October 2004

Note that I removed references to the idea that abiogenesis (in the modern sense) does not occur in the modern world. For all we know (well, for all I know; biologists may feel free to correct me) abiogenesis occurs constantly, and is generally unobserved because the new proto-life immediately becomes food for existing life. -- April

This still needs lots of work, but I'm increasingly unsure of my ground here. I'll leave this awhile in case a biologist may be tempted to do a better revision, and if not, come back to it after more reading-up on the topic. -- April 04:01 Sep 7, 2002 (UTC)

Is there a reason for using the term Aristolian instead of Aristotelian? Someone else

• Naw, if Aristotelian is the preferred term, by all means change it. -- April

Thing about Abiogenesis is, you need to define non-life before you can have life come from it. So, if you prove that nothing is non-living, you disprove abiogenesis. You also have to define life to have it come from non-life, in which case life would have to be something that really exists (not an illusion) in order for abiogenesis to have occured.

The trouble with making these definitions is, the words are still used as questions, not answers. We know some things are alive and some aren't, but we still don't know the exact difference. Living things can and do reproduce, but we have no proof that supposedly non-living things wouldn't, given the right circumstances.

There are things we can say about scientific observations of life, however. Life is apparently a state that certain combinations of matter can be in. Life is shaped into organisms, of a cellular nature. These organisms are composed of smaller mechanoids, including mechanoids for making other mechanoids. All known life is based on the RNA/DNA molecule, with supporting and resulting protiens and lipids.

If something was discovered to be analogous to life, but not based on RNA/DNA/protien, would it be called life? Our macroscopic robotics and computers come close. A nanomachine soup could come closer, perhaps. But robots and nanobots are hardly aboigenic themselves.

Merged some material with origin of life article

I think this article should this be merged with origin of life. The historical part can easily be part of that article, and the modern stuff overlaps with what is on that page right now in any case. --Lexor 19:25, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Actually, I have modified my position. I think it should probably be left as a separate page, since it is a slightly more general concept and has a history of its own. I have taken the liberty to move most of the "modern abiogenesis" stuff which is almost exclusively about the origin of life and merge it with the origin of life article, but have left a summary and a Main article: pointer here.

--Lexor 12:05, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Paragraph removed by anonymous IP address (not by me). --Lexor|Talk 10:13, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If abiogenesis is found impossible, this would seem to disprove both evolutionary and religious explanations of the origin of life, and would support the idea that life has always existed. The only remaining point would be whether or not life is modified by nature, as claimed by evolutionists, or not, as claimed by many religions

Proposal to Merge this page into Biopoiesis

I would like to know how you folks feel about merging abiogenesis into biopoiesis. This term carries less historical baggage and seems to be favored over abiogenesis in some situations. --Viriditas 11:27, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I prefer to leave it abiogenesis where it is (it gets around 18,000 hits: abiogenesis), and I think that biopoiesis should be merged with origin of life, it only gets 91 hits on Google: biopoiesis. With two sentences I can't really see it being expanded. --Lexor|Talk 11:45, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

Biopoiesis has been used in place of abiogenesis by a number of researchers involved in origins related work. OTOH, abiogenesis has connotations of spontaneous generation, and it currently bears the weight of two different definitions. I am therefore suggesting that abiogenesis should refer to spontaneous generation while biogenesis should be used to refer to its current definition regarding the origin of life.. IMO, I doubt that a google hit ranking will reflect this difference in any way, as most of the journals, articles, and textbooks that use these definitions are not online. Also, I don't think one can look towards a google search to reflect the correct usage of any term. When I have some more time I will try to present some further evidence for the proposed merge. Thanks for your response. In my proposal, the article for abiogenesis would still exist but it would not refer to the more modern implication of biopoiesis, just spontaneous generation. --Viriditas 00:34, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)