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Some people seem to think that abiogenesis is impossible. Can they please explain, in detail, why?

In the responses to this question yesterday:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?%E2%80%A6

Several people posted that abiogenesis is impossible. But they failed to explain exactly why it is impossible.

If you think abiogenesis is impossible can you please give a detailed explanation of why DNA or RNA type molecules could never ever be formed under any circumstances.

Do not be afraid to get too technical. I did collage level chemistry and have a good knowledge of biology, and if you go past those levels I am more than willing to learn something new.

BTW, I also have an excellent understanding of math and probabilities, and I am aware that there is a vast difference between improbable and impossible.

So, come on and educate me.

1 Answer

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favourite answer

    Abiogenesis is the now discredited theory that living organisms can arise spontaneously from inanimate matter; spontaneous generation. People who ask such questions as yours are generally not interested in a logical response.

    Nevertheless, No known laws of nature allow complex, living, information-containing systems to develop from the random interactions of matter. Yet, this is what is required in order for life to have evolved in the universe. Many different models are used to explain how life can come from nonliving matter, but all of these models, including the famous Miller-Urey experiment, fail to account for the many chemical and biological barriers to spontaneously forming life.

    There is absolutely no way to verify any hypothesis that attempts to explain how the very first living thing came about in a purely naturalistic way. Naturalists must follow an evolutionary chain from the organisms living today back to the beginning of the universe. For them, complex animals came from simple animals which came from simpler organisms which came from chemicals which came from stardust. If one of these pieces is missing, evolutionary thinking loses its foundation.

    Information theorist Hubert Yockey argued that chemical evolutionary research raises the question:

    Research on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion has already been authoritatively accepted … . What remains to be done is to find the scenarios which describe the detailed mechanisms and processes by which this happened. One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written. (Yockey, 1977. A calculation of the probability of spontaneous biogenesis by information theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology 67:377–398, quotes from pp. 379, 396.)

    In a book he wrote 15 years later, Yockey argued that the idea of abiogenesis from a primordial soup is a failed paradigm: Although at the beginning the paradigm was worth consideration, now the entire effort in the primeval soup paradigm is self-deception on the ideology of its champions. … The history of science shows that a paradigm, once it has achieved the status of acceptance (and is incorporated in textbooks) and regardless of its failures, is declared invalid only when a new paradigm is available to replace it. Nevertheless, in order to make progress in science, it is necessary to clear the decks, so to speak, of failed paradigms. This must be done even if this leaves the decks entirely clear and no paradigms survive. It is a characteristic of the true believer in religion, philosophy and ideology that he must have a set of beliefs, come what may (Hoffer, 1951). Belief in a primeval soup on the grounds that no other paradigm is available is an example of the logical fallacy of the false alternative. In science it is a virtue to acknowledge ignorance. This has been universally the case in the history of science as Kuhn (1970) has discussed in detail. There is no reason that this should be different in the research on the origin of life. (Yockey, 1992. Information Theory and Molecular Biology, p. 336, Cambridge University Press, UK, ISBN 0-521-80293-8).

    Yockey, in general, possesses a highly critical attitude toward people who give credence toward natural origins of life, often invoking words like "faith" and "ideology". Yockey's publications have become favorites to quote among creationists, though he is not a creationist himself

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