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Abiogenesis

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Abiogenesis (Greek a-bio-genesis, "non biological origins") is, in its most general sense, the hypothetical generation of life from non-living matter. Today the term is primarily used to refer to hypotheses of the origin of life from a primordial soup. Earlier notions of abiogenesis, now more commonly known as spontaneous generation, held that living organisms are generated by decaying organic substances, e.g. that mice spontaneously appear in stored grain or maggots spontaneously appear in meat. (That idea, which has long been known to be incorrect, will be called "Aristotelian abiogenesis" in this article.)

Bold text'Bold text'== History of abiogenesis hypotheses ==

Aristotelian abiogenesis, also known as spontaneous generation, (and, in older texts, Generatio aequivoca, Generatio primaria, archegenesis, autogenesis, and archebiosis), was the theory according to which fully formed living organisms sometimes arise from not-living matter. Aristotle explicitly taught this form of abiogenesis, and laid it down as an observed fact that some animals spring from putrid matter, that plant lice arise from the dew which falls on plants, that fleas are developed from putrid matter, that mice come from dirty hay, and so forth. Alexander Ross, in commenting on Sir Thomas Browne's doubt as to "whether mice may be bred by putrefaction", gives a clear statement of the common opinion on abiogenesis held until about two centuries ago. Ross wrote:

So may he (Sir Thomas Browne) doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated; or if beetles and wasps in cows' dung; or if butterflies, locusts, grasshoppers, shell-fish, snails, eels, and such like, be procreated of putrefied matter, which is apt to receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense and experience. If he doubts of this let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice, begot of the mud of Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants.

The first step in the scientific refutation of the theory of Aristotelian abiogenesis was taken by the Italian Francesco Redi, who, in 1668, proved that no maggots were bred in meat on which flies were prevented by wire screens from laying their eggs. From the 17th century onwards it was gradually shown that, at least in the case of all the higher and readily visible organisms, spontaneous generation did not occur, but that omne vivum ex ovo, every living thing came from a pre-existing living thing.

The discovery of the microscope carried the refutation further. In 1683 Antoni van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria, and it was soon found that however carefully organic matter might be protected by screens, or by being placed in stoppered receptacles, putrefaction set in, and was invariably accompanied by the appearance of myriads of bacteria and other low organisms. As knowledge of microscopic forms of life increased, so the apparent possibilities of abiogenesis increased, and it became a tempting hypothesis that whilst the higher forms of life arose only by generation from their kind, there was a perpetual abiogenetic fount by which the first steps in the evolution of living organisms continued to arise, under suitable conditions, from inorganic matter. This was mostly disproved by Lazzaro Spallanzani, who, in 1768, proved that microbes came from the air, and could be killed by boiling. His work paved the way for Louis Pasteur.

It was due chiefly to Louis Pasteur that the occurrence of abiogenesis in the microscopic world was disproved as much as its occurrence in the macroscopic world. If organic matter were first sterilized and then prevented from contamination from without, putrefaction did not occur, and the matter remained free from microbes. The nature of sterilization, and the difficulties in securing it, as well as the extreme delicacy of the manipulations necessary, made it possible for a very long time to be doubtful as to the application of the phrase omne vivum e vivo to the microscopic world, and there still remain a few belated supporters of abiogenesis. Subjection to the temperature of boiling water for, say, half an hour seemed an efficient mode of sterilization, until it was discovered that the spores of bacteria are so involved in heat-resisting membranes, that only prolonged exposure to dry, baking heat can be recognized as an efficient process of sterilization. Moreover, the presence of bacteria, or their spores, is so universal that only extreme precautions guard against a re-infection of the sterilized material. It was thus concluded definitely that all known living organisms arise only from pre-existing living organisms.

Modern concept of abiogenesis

Main article: Origin of life

Even as Aristotelian abiogenesis was being disproven, many scientists, such as T. H. Huxley, continued to postulate a "primordial archebiosis", in which the living organisms observed in the present world had originally arisen in a series of stages from non-living matter. (This hypothetical scenario is not greatly different from the original Aristotelian hypothesis). Such scientists pointed out that the disproof of Aristotelian abiogenesis applied only to "known existing organisms", not to unknown forms of life or proto-life which may have existed under the vastly different conditions of the early Earth.

The modern definition of abiogenesis is concerned with the formation of the earliest forms of life on earth from primordial chemicals. This is a significantly different thing from the concept of Aristotelian abiogenesis, which postulated the formation of complex organisms. Different hypotheses for modern abiogenetic processes are currently under debate with no clear frontrunner; see, for example, RNA world hypothesis, proteinoid, Miller experiment.

Critics

The modern concept of abiogenesis has been criticised by scientists, notably by Sir Fred Hoyle, Erwin Schrödinger and Hubert Yockey. It should be noted that despite the success these scientists have had in their respective fields of study, they do or did not have expertise in biology. Leading biologists point to fundamental assumptions in their arguments which have little to no bearing on abiogenesis theories or research.

Hoyle

Sir Fred Hoyle with Chandra Wickramasinghe was a proponent of Panspermia, first proposed by the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras. Hoyle became a staunch critic of hypotheses of chemical evolution to explain the naturalistic Origin of life.

Panspermia, per se, is not actually in conflict with the idea of abiogenesis, though Hoyle's interpretation of panspermia clearly does conflict. Panspermia simply moves the origin of life elsewhere in the universe.

Schroedinger

In 1944, physicist Erwin Schroedinger, in his book What is life?, has shown that the mechanism of genetics defies the laws of thermodynamics, since a relatively small number of molecules, which form the genetic material, have such a huge influence on so many others molecules. Although not direct criticism of abiogenesis, Schroedinger's book asserts that life can't be explained by the laws of physics thus implying that it can't be created from lifeless matter.

Today, scientists believe that the distinction between large numbers and small numbers is eminently important to understand biological systems, because they are small number systems rather than the convenient large number systems that physicists prefer. What thermodynamics (which Schroedinger based his book on) describes as a random fluctuation is a signaling process to cell biology. Hormonal signals depend on the behavior of small systems, where fluctuations can push a system beyond a threshold level where a chemical reaction suddenly becomes spontaneous; as opposed to, say, a balloon filled with gas, where a fluctuation (for example, a change of speed) of a few hundreds of molecules will not change the state of the gas in the balloon as a whole (for example, it will not change its temperature). [1]

Yockey

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 (as noted in this 1995 email [2]).

References

  • Things Come to Life by Henry Harris (2002) [ISBN 0198515383]
  • Buehler, Lukas K. (2000-2005) The physico-chemical basis of life, http://www.whatislife.com/about.html accessed 10/27/2005.
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