"Don't worry Burgy, you're not a vitalist."
He is if he believes that life cannot be explained in materialist terms
alone, which he seems to believe.
"I believe it was Arthur Peacocke who coined the term "nothingbutism" to
refer to the type of reductionism apparently espoused by Kevin."
Hey, what can I say? Reductionism has worked beautifully in biology and
biochemistry for at least a hundred years, so I expect it will work just as
well for another, at least.
"If Kevin is correct then practically all of the scientists who associate
themselves with the chaos/complexity/self-organization 'paradigm' would be
vitalists."
If they believe that life cannot be explained in materialist terms alone,
they would be. By the way, that paradigm so far has revealed nothing new in
biochemistry, though it has helped to explain certain anomalies in biology.
Still, it has a long way to go before it can become the overall theory that
explains the whole of biological life, from the smallest molecule to the
global ecosystem. Until then, reductionism is all we have to understand it.
"I must admit that I was somewhat taken aback by Kevin's statement that the
Miller Urey experiment was an example of abiogenesis."
Biologists and biochemists define abiogenesis as the formation biological
material from non-biological material using non-biological processes. The
Miller-Urey experiment made biological materials from non-biological
materials using non-biological processes. Seems to match the definition to
me.
"This is due to the fact that I had always seen the term used as Burgy is
using it."
No offense, but you're not a biologist or a biochemist, so you wouldn't know
what the current definition was.
"But, in the past, I've always tried to follow Pascal when he said that he
would not complain about a word as long as he knows what you mean by it
(unfortunately I have to paraphrase Pascal as I don't have my copy of
Provincial Letters handy)."
The only problem with that is the vast majority of scientific terms have
definitions that are so precise that if you paraphrase them you loose alot
of their critical meaning. Your a mechanical physicist. Would you allow a
student to define work as "the physical effort to do chores", even though
you knew what he was talking about? Could the two of you meaningfully
discuss forces, vectors, impulse, momentum or energy using such a
definition? I think not.
"After some reflection, I believe Kevin's definition may have its points for
some situations. Nevertheless its almost bound to lead to confusion."
Only for those who don't know biochemistry. And it's not my definition; it
is the biochemical definition.
"In any event, Burgy makes a good point. In defining abiogenesis as Kevin
has one divorces abiogenesis from necessarily having anything to do with the
origin of life on earth."
Since life is based on metabolism, which is based on biomolecules, I don't
see how defining abiogenesis properly divorces it from "necessarily having
anything to do with the origin of life on earth". Unless of course you
believe that life cannot be explained inmaterialistic terms alone.
If "life" is not metabolism based on biomolecules, then please define
"life".
"For example, if 'the origin of life on earth' occurred at a deep sea
hydrothermal vent, then the abiogenetic production of amino acids by passing
electrical discharges through a reducing atmosphere probably had nothing to
do with 'the origin of life on earth'."
Interesting you should bring that up. I recently read an article by Miller
in which he stated that the major problem with the hydrothermal vent model
was that there were no proposed mechanisms by which a vent could make
biomolecules, but lots of known mechanisms by which a vent could break them
down. I'm not using Miller's statement as "proof" that this model is false,
but it does seem to me that that is a very serious problem. That may be why
many abiogeneticists are returning to the reducing atmosphere idea, but
throwing in the added idea of prebiotic material concentration followed by
solid-phase catalysis. Sounds alot like some of Fox's original ideas.
Kevin L. O'Brien