Evolution is not Abiogenesis

That is what I thought too.Just checkin'.

Hi Panda some, but not all, chemical processes are part of some, but not all, biological processes.some chemical processes are not biologicalsome biological processes are not chemicalchemistry is not biology, they are different sciences.Enjoy.

I think this discussion is probably a foretaste of the arguments to come when we get into the details of abiogenesis - we probably won't be able to see the join between life and no-life.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Which ones? The mechanical ones, that themselves are driven by chemistry? The electrical ones, that themselves are driven by chemistry?Biology is a specific subset of chemistry. What we call "life" is perhaps best described as an extremely complex series of interdependent self-replicating chemical reactions.

Hi Rahvin, So now we have one claim that chemistry is a subset of biology and your counter. Population dynamics, changes to the ecology, stochastic processes, neutral drift ...Enjoy.

Biochemistry is a subset of chemistry.Both abiogenesis and evolution involve mechanical and chemical processes. The chemical processes of abiogenesis would be called chemistry. The chemical processes of evolution would be called biochemistry.--Percy

Right, but the claim that chemistry is a subset of biology is blatantly false. There are innumerable chemical reactions that do not involve biology or even organic compounds. Just as an example, my personal favorite abiotic chemical reaction would be the iron oxide and elemental aluminum reaction that produces elemental iron and aluminum oxide, commonly referred to as "thermite." No biology involved, just the presence of some inorganic compounds in a nice homogenous mixture and a fuse to get it started. If chemistry were a subset of biology, this and every other reaction would of necessity involve some biological process, or at least relate to one.Biology, on the other hand consists of complex aggregate interdependent self-sustaining chemical reactions. Growth is chemistry. Respiration is chemistry. Reaction to stimuli is chemistry, even in sentient organisms like us. Reproduction is chemistry. Every thought you think, every muscle you move, every bite you eat, every meal digested, every waste product excreted, all of it is chemistry.We're nothing more than self-replicating chemical entropy machines with an emergent side-property of being consciously aware of our own nature and desperate to deny it in favor of something more "special." ...meaning what, exactly? The heritable traits that determine changes in populations and the response to changing environments are deoxyribonucleic acid. The heritability of those traits is yet more chemistry. Neutral drift is a function of neutral mutations in a population, which in turn is just more chemistry.At best you can claim that social behaviors and natural selection itself are emergent from the complex self-replicating interdependent chemical reactions that make up all forms of life of which we are aware...but at the end of the day, that's still all we are: chemistry.Chemistry, of course, being a subset of physics...

Panda was talking about biological processes, and those do contain chemical processes. But chemistry is not a subset of biology.

I get what you're saying, but you don't need any chemistry to study population dynamics.Just like you don't need any physics to do a chemistry experiment even tho that what it ultimately boils down to.

to bring out all the pedants and pick nitters Nor can you use chemistry to study population dynamics.Neutral drift is not a chemical reaction nor is it a chemical process, and it cannot be studied using chemistry..Life is not just chemistry bubbling in a vat. A hot spring with a lot of chemical reactions going on is not life.Enjoy.

Once you hit life, which is biology, abiogenesis stops.Also, abiogenesis and evolution are no different than any other theory in science where it concerns the "intellectual fulfillment for atheism". Meteorology? We have found natural causes for lightning and rain instead of supernatural causes. Germ theory? That too is caused by natural mechanism, not a supernatural cause. You are pointing your finger at the whole of science because every scientific theory has replaced an older supernatural explanation. I am talking about the way that biologists define biological evolution, not how ignorant creationists define it. It is creationists that force evolution to contradict religion. It is not biologists who have decided that humans and other mammals sharing a common ancestor contradicts religion. That would be creationists. That would be you. It is you who has decided that your religious beliefs should contradict reality. Scientists are following the evidence. There is no conspiracy theory to trap creationists. They do that all on their own.Creationism is denial of reality, plain and simple. There is no way around it. When someone claims that there is no evidence that humans and other animals share a common ancestor they are denying the evidence. Scientists really don't spend time commenting on books that other scientists write. You will not find that many scientists who have made comments on Collin's "The Language of God" either.

Well allow me to be even more pedantic...A biological process is something that happens within a single organism rather than something that occurs on the population level so those *could* all just be chemical processes.So everybody was right: Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

Hi, Rahvin Reductionism is not always the answer. Life isn't just a substrate: it's also the processes that act on that substrate the shape it into what it is.There's a seminal paper in ecology that might shed some light on this little side discussion:Levin SA. 1992. The problem of pattern and scale in ecology. Ecology 73(6):1943-1967.

quote:

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Abstract.
It is argued that the problem of pattern and scale is the central problem in ecology, unifying population biology and ecosystems science, and marrying basic and applied ecology. Applied challenges, such as the prediction of the ecological causes and consequences of global climate change, require the interfacing of phenomena that occur on very different scales of space, time, and ecological organization. Furthermore, there is no single natural scale at which ecological phenomena should be studied; systems generally show characteristic variability on a range of spatial, temporal, and organizational scales. The observer imposes a perceptual bias, a filter through which the system is viewed. This has fundamental evolutionary significance, since every organism is an "observer" of the environment, and life history adaptations such as dispersal and dormancy alter the perceptual scales of the species, and the observed variability. It likewise has fundamental significance for our own study of ecological systems, since the patterns that are unique to any range of scales will have unique causes and biological consequences. The key to prediction and understanding lies in the elucidation of mechanisms underlying observed patterns. Typically, these mechanisms operate at different scales than those on which the patterns are observed; in some cases, the patterns must be understood as emerging from the collective behaviors of large ensembles of smaller scale units. In other cases, the pattern is imposed by larger scale constraints. Examination of such phenomena requires the study of how pattern and variability change with the scale of description, and the development of laws for simplification, aggregation, and scaling. Examples are given from the marine and terrestrial literatures.

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The punch line is that life is organized at a number of different scales (molecular, cellular, organismal, population, ecosystem, etc.), and things that happen at each scale are partially driven by mechanisms that operate uniquely at that scale; side effects of these mechanisms reverberate up and down the scale, so that neither small-scale (i.e. chemical) nor large-scale (i.e. ecological) viewpoints tell the whole story.It could be argued that chemical processes are what drive ecological processes: for example, lions run fast because the chemistry of the muscles and bones is suitable for fast running. But, it could just as plausibly be argued that the need to run fast (ecological scale) drove the chemistry of the bones and muscles to allow fast running over evolutionary time.The whole point of natural selection is that life results from more than just chemical reactions: it results from the complex action of abstract imperatives (demographics, social behaviors, etc.) on a chemical substrate. So, I could say that, at the end of the day, we are what those imperatives forced our chemistry to become.

What do you guys and girls think of this quote by Theodosius Dobzhansky?"Evolution comprises all the stages of the development of the universe: the cosmic, biological, and human or cultural developments. Attempts to restrict the concept of evolution to biology are gratuitous. Life is a product of the evolution of inorganic matter, and man is a product of the evolution of life."Edited by Portillo, : No reason given.

Fine as far as it goes and when you're using evolution in a colloquial sense to mean change over time. However, when you talk about biological evolution you necessarily add descent with modification into the mix since thats what organisms do. The ToE ONLY applies to biological evolution. Abiogenesis is an event.