# Naturalism and Abiogenesis

**URL:** <https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393>\
**Category:** Conversation\
**Tags:** Science, Atheism, Philosophy\
**Created:** [October 15, 2021, 6:34am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393 "2021-10-15T06:34:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![RonSewell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/ronsewell/32/6194_2.png) [@RonSewell](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/RonSewell)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 3:56pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/22 "2021-10-15T15:56:28Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> Is it hypocritical of naturalists and materialists and atheists to posit a theory that it itself cannot be empirically verified or tested utilising the scientific method?

Hello Otto.

I do not know if materialistic abiogenesis is possible. There are many scientists dedicated to the problem, applying theory, observations, measurements, and empirical experimentation. Hypothesis concerning abiogenesis absolutely _are_ in principle and practice subject to empirical verification and testing by the scientific method. Why would you suggest otherwise?

> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> kindly give me a link to any scientific study that can replicate a biogenesis kindly give me empirical evidence that shows that a biogenesis can occur naturally as a phenomenon in nature

That you are asking this is a demonstration that you have not done your own homework, and initiated the thread with no real idea of the relevant extensive scientific literature before presumptuously laying a charge of hypocrisy. Before you come back with - _“those do not prove that biogenesis can occur”_ - of course a natural path to life has not yet been demonstrated in the lab. This is a big problem with a lot of pieces to be put together, and advances would be expected to be incremental. What, in your opinion, is wrong with working on it? Some think that significant scientific progress has been made, so maybe you should consider tempering your loaded question.

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**Author:** ![Roy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/roy/32/3799_2.png) [@Roy](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Roy)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/23 "2021-10-15T16:49:38Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> I’m using it correctly hes being logically fallacious as are you if you "half of someone’s sentence why don’t you read the rest of the sentence

You aren’t posting in sentences.

Nor are you defining abiogenesis correctly.

As best I can tell from your punctuationless stream-of-consciousness, this was your first ‘sentence’:

> [@](#):
>
> Abiogenesis is the scientific theory that **life comes only from life** yet somehow in the far distant past life came from non life in that inanimate became animate

You later attempted to clarify your meaning thus:

> [@](#):
>
> A biogenesis is the theory that **life only comes from life** but in the far distant past life came from non life that inanimate became animate that is the correct definition

Both of these say\* that life only came from non-life in the distant past, and only comes from life today - I’ve highlighted the relevant sections - but that is not part of the concept of abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is the process by which life arises from non-life (non-living matter). It does not include any restrictions on when or how often that may have happened, or that it could not happen or be happening now, on Earth or elsewhere. So when you include “life only comes from life” in your ‘definition’ of abiogenesis **YOU ARE WRONG** , no matter what else you include in your definition.

It’s as if you defined a camel as a ‘_purple-hatted desert-dwelling herbivorous quadruped_’, some-one objected to your definition starting with ‘purple-hatted’ and you insisted you were right because camels live in deserts and eat plants and wear purple hats.

Do you understand this?

\*assuming no error due to aperiodicity.

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**Author:** ![AlanFox](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/alanfox/32/3495_2.png) [@AlanFox](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/AlanFox)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/24 "2021-10-15T16:49:50Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> how come there’s no scientific test that can be devised to test the empirical veracity of the claim of abiogenesis?

As I said at the top of this thread, there is at present no theory of abiogenesis to test. There are some facts and data points and there is ongoing research to find more evidence. One fact is that when planet Earth first formed it was too hot for liquid water and there were no living organisms. We have indirect evidence that living organisms began to proliferate soon after liquid water condensed on the surface. Whether this event was unique is something that is being actively investigated. We are looking for clues on Mars, which once had surface water, that life may have started independently there. If that question can be answered (yes or no) that would be a hugely important second data point. Recent advances in discovering exoplanets, which seem to me much more numerous than once thought, may create further data points in future.

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**Author:** ![Mercer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Mercer](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Mercer)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/25 "2021-10-15T16:49:59Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> I’m using it correctly…

No, you are not.

There is an important difference between hypothesis and theory that you are missing. That, and other things, greatly interfere with your understanding. There is a recent thread on some amazing abiogenesis research here:

> [@Why ATP? Abiotic chemistry provides an answer](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/why-atp-abiotic-chemistry-provides-an-answer/14382):
>
> Nick Lane’s research group as UCL has found an answer to one of the most fundamental mysteries about the chemistry of life: Why do cells use ATP rather than any one of the other, equally capable nucleotide triphosphates? It turns out the answer is found uniquely in abiotic chemistry. The ion Fe3+ will catalyze the phosphorylation of only ADP to ATP with acetyl-phosphate(AcP) under mild and anoxic conditions in water, whereas the reaction does not occur for any of the other nucleotides, and no other common ion or metabolic cofactor seems able to catalyze the reaction. Thus prebiotic chemistry that would have almost certainly existed on the primordial Earth(high iron contents in water, no oxygen) answers this most fundamental question about the basic metabolic process of all known cellular life. This then, incidentally, also constitutes evidence that the metabolic processes of life on Earth began with prebiotic chemistry in an aqueous setting. And is thus evidence for a natural, phys…

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**Author:** ![Art](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/art/32/3805_2.png) [@Art](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Art)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 4:51pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/26 "2021-10-15T16:51:11Z")

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> [@Art](#):
>
> > [@LogosOfLogic](#):
> >
> > If life can come from non life then how come this natural phenomena is not a curling right now that’s my question
> 
> How do you know that new life forms are not arising, as per abiogenesis, in the here-and-now? What are your assays? Where are the data? Results?
> 
> Just wondering…

> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> kindly give me a link to any scientific study that can replicate a biogenesis kindly give me empirical evidence that shows that a biogenesis can occur naturally as a phenomenon in nature

@LogosOfLogic, so you really don’t have any data, nor can you cite any, that supports your claim that “this natural phenomena is not a curling right now”.

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**Author:** ![LogosOfLogic](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/logosoflogic/32/13093_2.png) [@LogosOfLogic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/LogosOfLogic)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 6:32pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/27 "2021-10-15T18:32:48Z")

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Actually quite the contrary I have done my homework and I know that there is no scientific experiment for materialistic abiogenesis. I’m just asking questions from the ones that know more than me to ascertain why a naturalist or atheist or materialist can believe in something that cannot be empirically verified tested or repeated using the scientific method? yet that is their biggest complaint against theists? that they themselves believe in something that is not empirically verified or testable through the scientific method? How are they not being hypocritical then?

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**Author:** ![John\_Harshman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_harshman/32/1121_2.png) [@John\_Harshman](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Harshman)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 6:47pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/28 "2021-10-15T18:47:30Z")

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> [@Mercer](#):
>
> If you want to discuss things with actual scientists, you will learn much more if you use actual scientific terms correctly.

Punctuation would be welcome too.

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**Author:** ![AlanFox](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/alanfox/32/3495_2.png) [@AlanFox](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/AlanFox)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 8:04pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/29 "2021-10-15T20:04:39Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> I’m just asking questions…

Well, OK, but are you reading the answers that several people have posted? For instance, the simple point that there is no theory of abiogenesis. You don’t appear to have taken that on board.

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**Author:** ![RonSewell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/ronsewell/32/6194_2.png) [@RonSewell](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/RonSewell)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 8:42pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/30 "2021-10-15T20:42:36Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> Actually quite the contrary I have done my homework and I know that there is no scientific experiment for materialistic abiogenesis.

Well, people do homework and still flunk. You are factually wrong.

[Searching NIH database on “RNA world”](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22RNA%20world%22&sort=pubdate) yields over 1000 papers, just for one avenue of investigation.

As @Mercer posted above, @Rumraket initiated a recent thread in this forum on a fascinating result for [the prebiotic basis for ATP](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/why-atp-abiotic-chemistry-provides-an-answer/14382). Regardless of what you may think about the conclusions, that is definitely a scientific experiment with implications for the investigation of materialist abiogenesis.

The classic 1952 [Miller experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment) qualified. And these examples are only the tip of the iceberg.

At one time, vitalism was the prevailing idea, that organic compounds could only be derived from life. Do you believe Wöhler have just accepted that vitalism was a law and no scientific experiment for non living synthesis of organic compounds was possible? He did not, and went on the synthesize urea. How many millions of organic compounds have been synthesize since? Clearly, abiogenic origin of organic compounds is experimentally validated. Vitalism never was soundly based on fundamental principles, it just that only living organisms had been observed to produce organic compounds before Wöhler’s breakthroughs. Likewise, while abiogenesis is far from being fully demonstrated, there is no basic principle of science which precludes the gap between non-life and life being breached. If you think it was reasonable for Wöhler to pursue his work, why would you not extend the same to origin of life research?

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**Author:** ![Mercer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Mercer](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Mercer)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 9:31pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/31 "2021-10-15T21:31:42Z")

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> [@RonSewell](#):
>
> At one time, vitalism was the prevailing idea, that organic compounds could only be derived from life. Do you believe Wöhler have just accepted that vitalism was a law and no scientific experiment for non living synthesis of organic compounds was possible? He did not, and went on the synthesize urea.

A lot of vitalists claimed that DNA synthesis required vitalism, but Kornberg proved them wrong by synthesizing DNA in vitro with purified enzymes and chemicals.

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**Author:** ![LogosOfLogic](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/logosoflogic/32/13093_2.png) [@LogosOfLogic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/LogosOfLogic)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 9:59pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/33 "2021-10-15T21:59:57Z")

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A hypothesis is an educated scientific guess theory is a group of hypotheses thought to be true

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**Author:** ![Michael\_Okoko](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/michael_okoko/32/13148_2.png) [@Michael\_Okoko](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Michael_Okoko)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 10:00pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/34 "2021-10-15T22:00:14Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> Why do you engage in logical fallacies such as attack against the man or ad hominum? if you were to quote something then you’d have to do an appropriate quotation to understand the context of what someone is saying in this particular case abiogenesis does mean that life comes from non life however after that there’s only biogenesis that life comes from life so I am correct in that assessment.

Talkorigins has several well-written articles on abiogenesis. It would serve your personal education well to read them up.

> **[Abiogenesis FAQs: The Origins of Life](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/)**
>
> Articles about abiogenesis (the origin of life) from the Talk.Origins Archive.

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**Author:** ![Mercer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Mercer](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Mercer)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 11:25pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/35 "2021-10-15T23:25:35Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> A hypothesis is an educated scientific guess theory is a group of hypotheses thought to be true

Half right.

A theory used to be a hypothesis, but it has survived multiple rigorous attempts to falsify it. Theory is much more rarely used in the collective sense you described here, but in that case, it is not a group of hypotheses, but of theories.

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**Author:** ![LogosOfLogic](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/logosoflogic/32/13093_2.png) [@LogosOfLogic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/LogosOfLogic)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 11:38pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/36 "2021-10-15T23:38:03Z")

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Abiogenesis, the **theory that life evolved from nonliving chemical systems** , replaced spontaneous generation as the leading theory for the origin of life. … Experiments by Miller and Urey showed that likely conditions on early Earth could create the needed organic molecules for life to appear.

I’m sorry but everything that I’m finding about abiogenesis States that it’s a theory a scientific theory

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**Author:** ![LogosOfLogic](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/logosoflogic/32/13093_2.png) [@LogosOfLogic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/LogosOfLogic)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 11:54pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/37 "2021-10-15T23:54:26Z")

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So please correct me if I’m wrong in this following exerpt from the links you sent the author is simply saying that the mathematical probability is a little lower than the astronomical figure that most creationists have come up with however the number that he comes up with is still exceedingly large and not that likely from a statistical mathematical viewpoint

“The probability of generating this in successive random trials is (1/20)32 or 1 chance in 4.29 x 1040. This is much, much more probable than the 1 in 2.04 x 10390 of the standard creationist “generating carboxypeptidase by chance” scenario, but still seems absurdly low.”

So by the same rationale any number that would be even a couple of digits less than “(1/20)32 or 1 chance in 4.29 x 1040.” that number which still satisfy the requirements even though there would be astronomically improbable from a statistical point of view

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Michael\_Okoko](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/michael_okoko/32/13148_2.png) [@Michael\_Okoko](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Michael_Okoko)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 11:54pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/38 "2021-10-15T23:54:29Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> Abiogenesis, the **theory that life evolved from nonliving chemical systems** , replaced spontaneous generation as the leading theory for the origin of life

That life emerged from nonliving matter is not a theory. It is a fact.

In addition, spontaneous generation and abiogenesis (at present) are two different ideas and the latter did not replace the former. I suspect you are getting these misconceptions from some creationist website.

> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> I’m sorry but everything that I’m finding about abiogenesis States that it’s a theory a scientific theory

It is not a theory, but there are models **on how it could have happened**.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Michael\_Okoko](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/michael_okoko/32/13148_2.png) [@Michael\_Okoko](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Michael_Okoko)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2021, 12:29am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/39 "2021-10-16T00:29:08Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> “The probability of generating this in successive random trials is (1/20)32 or 1 chance in 4.29 x 1040. This is much, much more probable than the 1 in 2.04 x 10390 of the standard creationist “generating carboxypeptidase by chance” scenario, but still seems absurdly low.”
> 
> So by the same rationale any number that would be even a couple of digits less than “(1/20)32 or 1 chance in 4.29 x 1040.” that number which still satisfy the requirements even though there would be astronomically improbable from a statistical point of view

How did you miss the concession by the author in the excerpt you posted?

"This is much, much more probable than the 1 in 2.04 x 10390 of the standard creationist “generating carboxypeptidase by chance” scenario, **but still seems absurdly low.** ”

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LogosOfLogic](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/logosoflogic/32/13093_2.png) [@LogosOfLogic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/LogosOfLogic)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2021, 1:11am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/42 "2021-10-16T01:11:07Z")

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Everything is reputable academic and scientific websites and not creationist websites. They are all saying that it’s a scientific theory. Can you please give me some links where it says scientific fact? thank you

In the actual terminology employed by these academic papers the authors use terms like, " if, could, and possibly" none of those sound like facts

What does the author conceding that point have anything to do with my assertion my assertion is true there’s just a little bit less probability than what the creationists assert

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**Author:** ![Rumraket](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/rumraket/32/9328_2.png) [@Rumraket](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rumraket)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2021, 1:04pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/45 "2021-10-16T13:04:53Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> Actually quite the contrary I have done my homework and I know that there is no scientific experiment for materialistic abiogenesis.

It’s hard to know what “scientific experiment for materialistic abiogenesis” means, but if you mean to say merely that scientists haven’t yet demonstrated the generation of life from non-life, then so what?

> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> I’m just asking questions from the ones that know more than me to ascertain why a naturalist or atheist or materialist can believe in something that cannot be empirically verified tested or repeated using the scientific method?

How do you know it can’t be tested or repeated using the scientific method? I’m pretty sure scientists are working on testing it right now as we speak.

> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> yet that is their biggest complaint against theists?

Untestability is certainly one complaint among many that “atheistic materialist naturalist scientist darwinist elitist pessimists” advance against proponents of the power of magical wishing.

> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> that they themselves believe in something that is not empirically verified or testable through the scientific method? How are they not being hypocritical then?

They’re not being hypocritical when, in fact, they are testing the theory as we speak. When in fact there is evidence for it, and when, contrary to the theory of a natural origin of life, the power of magically wishing life into existence by an invisible incorporeal agent with libertarian free will really is completely untestable.

> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> kindly give me a link to any scientific study that can replicate a biogenesis kindly give me empirical evidence that shows that a biogenesis can occur naturally as a phenomenon in nature

Scientists are working on that as we speak.

> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> If life can come from non life then how come this natural phenomena is not a curling right now that’s my question

How do you know it’s not happening right now somewhere? What measurements did you perform, where, and when and for how long?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AlanFox](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/alanfox/32/3495_2.png) [@AlanFox](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/AlanFox)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2021, 1:05pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/naturalism-and-abiogenesis/14393/46 "2021-10-16T13:05:11Z")

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> [@LogosOfLogic](#):
>
> everything that I’m finding about abiogenesis States that it’s a theory a scientific theory

Citation please.

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