Thread: Theory of evolution

Why doesn't the current theory of evolution explain chemical evolution when the past theory claimed to have explained this?

Monomer accumulation
The "soup" theory relies on the assumption proposed by Darwin that in an environment with no pre-existing life, organic molecules may have accumulated and provided an environment for chemical evolution.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

What do you mean?

Originally Posted by KALSTER

What do you mean?

I mean that Darwin supported chemical evolution and the current theory of evolution does not.

Why is that if this is science.

What specific do you mean by chemical evolution? Can you give examples of what you mean?

Originally Posted by KALSTER

What specific do you mean by chemical evolution? Can you give examples of what you mean?

I gave a link.

Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This means that life evolved from chemicals.

Abiogenesis is about how life came about. Evolution is about what happened afterwards. What bit of this don't you understand? Evolution doesn't need to include abiogenesis, and it doesn't. Just like abiogenesis doesn't include evolution. However, they go hand-in-hand and in no way contradict each other. It's just that one goes after the other.

Chinglu, can you point to where in Darwin's works he asserted that evolution was also covering what is now called abiogenisis?

Originally Posted by chinglu

Why doesn't the current theory of evolution explain chemical evolution when the past theory claimed to have explained this?

Monomer accumulation
The "soup" theory relies on the assumption proposed by Darwin that in an environment with no pre-existing life, organic molecules may have accumulated and provided an environment for chemical evolution.


Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By the "past theory" you seem to be referring to some speculation and assumptions by Darwin?. He had no information about prebiotic Earth and hence no way of developing a theory. A guess is not a theory.

We are now in the process of developing and testing various possible mechanisms in order to develop one or more theories of abiogenesis. At some point, if they have enough support, then "chemical evolution" might be merged into the wider theory of evolution.

chinglu, Darwin's speculations - and they were very clearly speculations - about the origin of life were contained in a letter to Joseph Hooker. They were quite separate from his theory of evolution which he had addressed in detail in the various editions of Origin and in other works. His speculation on abiogenesis was absolutely not a part of the theory of evolution.

While the point about Darwin's original theory referring only to the evolution of already living beings is of course well taken,

and convenience in so easily handling the latest round of creationist bs is a significant benefit,

excluding abiogenesis from the events addressable via Darwinian theory is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Right now Darwinian theory offers by far the most likely framework for explaining abiogenesis, and that is not controversial - it is the theory framing most of the research in the field.

Yes. I think we all agree that the lines between abiogenesis and evolution is necessarily blurred. Nevertheless, they denote different paradigms of research with the blurring as a given.

Originally Posted by iceaura

While the point about Darwin's original theory referring only to the evolution of already living beings is of course well taken,

and convenience in so easily handling the latest round of creationist bs is a significant benefit,

excluding abiogenesis from the events addressable via Darwinian theory is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Right now Darwinian theory offers by far the most likely framework for explaining abiogenesis, and that is not controversial - it is the theory framing most of the research in the field.

I agree with everything you have said here, but I was addressing Chinglu's apparent claim that Darwin had made abiogenesis a central part of his theory. He hadn't. As with many other aspects of his theory, like the then paucity of the fossil record, he had serious doubts and concerns. Even though the full complexity of cells was not then appreciated Darwin recgonside, as is evident in his private correspondence, the huge gulf that existed between 'simple' chemicals and the first functioning cells.

Originally Posted by Paleoichneum

Chinglu, can you point to where in Darwin's works he asserted that evolution was also covering what is now called abiogenisis?

Certainly, it's on me

In a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker on February 1, 1871,^[8] Charles Darwin addressed the question, suggesting that the original spark of life may have begun in a "warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, so that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes". He went on to explain that "at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed."^[9] In other words, the presence of life itself makes the search for the origin of life dependent on the sterile conditions of the laboratory.

Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The thing is the letters are not part of his formalized evolutionary theory that he published. He may have speculated on it a little but he did not address it in "On the origin of species"

Darwin speculated on the origin of life, but was quite explicit about saying he didn't know. It was never part of the theory of evolution and he only wrote about the origin of life in a letter, he never published anything on it and it did not appear in the Origin of Species.