EvC Forum: Woese's progenote hypothesis

In looking at the {evolution} entry on wikipedia I noticed a tree of life with the caption:

A hypothetical phylogenetic tree of all extant organisms, based on 16S rRNA gene sequence data, showing the evolutionary history of the three domains of life, bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. Originally proposed by Carl Woese.

(color yellow and bold mine for empHASis)

When I clicked on the Carl Woese link it led me to
Carl Woese - Wikipedia
(where you can also see the tree)

Carl Richard Woese (born July 15, 1928) is an American microbiologist famous for defining the Archaea (a new domain or kingdom of life) in 1977 by phylogenetic taxonomy of 16S ribosomal RNA, a technique pioneered by Woese and which is now standard practice. He was also the originator of the RNA world hypothesis in 1967, although not by that name. He was born in Syracuse, New York, on July 15, 1928. Woese is currently a professor of Microbiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Having defined Archaea as a new domain, Woese redrew the taxonomic tree. His system, based upon genetic relationships rather than obvious morphological similarities, divided life into 23 main divisions, all incorporated within three domains: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucarya. Archaea are neither Bacteria nor Eukaryotes. Looked at another way, they are Prokaryotes which are not Bacteria.

From this it appears that Woese clearly shows a common beginning to the three (for now) domains of life. I've circled the area of contention on this thread:

(click for larger version)

The only real question would appear to be whether he considers the beginning is {biotic\life} or {pre-biotic\material} and the best answer for that would be to ask Dr. Woese rather than make conjectures.

And in the end, this would still just be his opinion, so basing the validity of the whole theory of evolution or abiogenesis (or whatever Randman's point was) on this is just another faulty use of the argument from authority.

His opinion, no matter how well informed, is not necessarily the truth of what occurred. That's my take.

Enjoy.

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