From: Richard Wein <rwein@lineone.net>
>From: DNAunion@aol.com <DNAunion@aol.com>
>
>>DNAunion: In addition, unlike Creationism, ID is not anti-evolution.
>"Pure" ID accepts evolution, just not its claimed unlimited creative powers
>(for example, the ability to create life from non-life).
>
>>Huxter: Many persons of the pro-ID persuasion on list, DNAunion for
>example, conflate evolution with abiogenesis.
>
>>DNAunion: Many persons on this list, unlike Huxter, can read and
>understand
>what they read. I did not say that evolution and abiogenesis are the same:
>I
>did not conflate the two (contrary to Huxter's claim).
>
>My statement meant that (according to the purely-natural, terrestrial
origin
>of life positions) evolution was the mechanism behind abiogenesis:
evolution
>is claimed to have had the power to turn lifeless molecules into life.
>Unless Huxter prefers *spontaneous and instantaneous* "ex nihilo" creation
>of
>life from simple organic chemicals, then I suggest that he too believes
that
>evolution was involved in the origin of life.
[...]
DNAUnion is correct, in that "abiogenesis" is generally used to refer to the
origin of the first "living" (whatever that means) organism. Darwinian
evolution would have begun from the time of the first self-replicating
entity, which would probably not be considered "living". So Huxter's use of
the term abiogenesis in this context is misleading (but this seems to be a
common error). It's unfortunate that there seems to be no single word that
describes the origin of the first self-replicating entity. (Perhaps I should
set up a keyboard macro for typing "origin of the first self-replicating
entity"--that would probably save me a lot of time.)
Richard Wein (Tich)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Oct 04 2000 - 05:02:56 EDT