Argument from abiogenesis

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Abiogenesis is the scientific study of the origin of life from inorganic matter. It is an ongoing area of research in the natural sciences. Though many concepts about the beginning of life have been proposed and even demonstrated, and there is a rough framework for the overall stages of the process, as of yet, a standard model of abiogenesis has not been developed.

Abiogenesis should not be confused with evolution, the study of how living things change over time, or cosmogony, the study of the origin of the universe.

The term "abiogenesis" was coined in 1870 by Thomas Huxley, an advocate for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. It comes from the ancient Greek "a-" (not) + "bios" (life) + "genesis" (origin). That is, the origin of life from non-life.

The term is used in reference to the scientific study thereof, to the exclusion of religious creation myths. Some confusion has arisen from the fact that the term has been used to describe the archaic theory that complex life can arise from non-life, such as maggots growing in meat. This is not the sense in which the word is used by modern researchers. Equating the archaic and modern usage in an attempt to discredit a modern theory is a straw man argument.


Abiogenesis and evolution



Abiogenesis and spontaneous generation

Creationists often claim that Francesco Redi disproved abiogenesis in 1668 by showing that flies do not appear on meat if the meat is sealed from outside contamination. This idea often manifests in the so-called Peanut Butter argument against evolution.

In fact, Redi disproved the theory of spontaneous generation, the idea that fully-formed modern flies spontaneously arise from meat.

After the invention of the microscope by van Leuwenhoek in 1683 and the subsequent discovery of bacteria it was thought that abiogenesis occurred among microscopic creatures. In the nineteenth century, Louis Pasteur sterilized broth by boiling for fifteen minutes and then sealed it in a glass flask. After several months he noticed that dust had settled on the flask, but no micro-organisms had formed within the broth.


A multitude of hypotheses








The Urey-Miller experiment





Later results





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