Talk:Abiogenesis

Regarding the Spoken Version

At the time I made this recording in February, this article was, and still is, completely in-accessible to laymen. I explained or canned the ridiculously technical aspects and got to the point of them as well as the tedious repitition and the self-serving name-dropping of the source of various studies used throughout. This is an encyclopedia, not Google Scholar. I didn't alter the actual text of the article.

The hypothetical study reversion

In case the editor whom DrBogdan requested to take it to the talk page, feels like actually doing so, please think again. The reversion was quite correct. You might or might not think that the event or process of abiogenesis itself is hypothetical, and many of us who do not seriously question the concept and reality of abiogenesis would not argue, but the study of potential mechanisms and histories of abiogenesis is as factual and material as any other study. Please be careful about such wording. JonRichfield (talk) 19:43, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Abiogenesis is a scientific theory

I have no clue why people are trying to remove "theory" from the first sentence of the lead. One editor apparently doesn't understand what a scientific theory is. And another wants to weasel word it for some indecipherable reason. Abiogenesis is a scientific theory based on the evidence and scientific consensus. Like Evolution. Or gravity. Or Cell theory. Or Germ theory. The Big Bang. Etc. etc. etc. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 07:43, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, there are several theories of how abiogenesis occured, but abiogenesis itself is a phenomenon, like evolution. The difference with evolution is that for evolution, only one theory has significant support, so the "theory of evolution" is shorthand for that particularly theory. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 07:49, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

If it was anyone else but you DV, whom I trust, I'd probably be rude and snarky. I'm going to strongly disagree with you. There is one theory of evolution that includes several possible mechanisms (genetic drift, natural selection, and something else that I can't remember, but is fairly controversial). The same here. There is a "theory of abiogenesis", that is, life arose from a non-biological chemical reaction (really dumbing that down, but we all know what it is). However, the mechanism of such is under discussion. Scientific theories don't have to describe a mechanism, but is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment." As you are very aware, creationists misuse the word "theory", but I have found that amateur scientists tend to misuse it too. Here's one article that describes the "theory of abiogenesis" though in context with a particular mechanism. I didn't just cherry pick articles that describe "theory of abiogenesis", I just chose one of the most recent publications (2012). I'll go along with your edit, though I strongly disagree. If you were a creo-bot, I most certainly would revert it. But I would like you to consider my points, however. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 20:32, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

We can speak of "the theory of gravity" or "the theory of evolution" and there would be little scope for confusion. We have many (and counting) candidate ideas of how abiogenesis occurred, and to speak of "the theory of abiogenesis" in the sense of "what a scientific theory is" would lead to some very peculiar looks from anyone who knew the field at all well. The better he knew the theory, the less well he would understand what you meant. OTOH, if you spoke of the "process" or "fact" of abiogenesis, he wouldn't even blink; you don't know the details of how it happened and neither would he, but he (and I hope you) would have a pretty good idea of which ideas might have contributed and which roles some of them might have played. We are confident that abiogenesis occurred. We are not confident of the details. Why speaking of the natural process or event or fact should suggest "weasel words" nonplusses me rather; I thought they were what one might call plain and specific English. Hmmm? JonRichfield (talk) 20:28, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

JR, I would consider that an amateurish description of "theory". That's not a criticism, that's just what counts for good editing on this project. We'd rather use commonplace definitions of words, than really writing as if there's science involved. If you think "facts" are used in science, my case is closed. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 20:35, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

SR, it wasn't a description or definition of a theory, only a discussion of why one would not use the word "theory" in this context. The fundamental concept of a "fact" in science is as you imply, not valid of course, but the informal concept is neither easy nor even profitable to eradicate. We have pretty conclusive reason to suspect that life on Earth (or nearby, if you include panspermia in some form) did not exist say 6 GY BP and pretty conclusive reason to suspect that it does now. Most scientists in most contexts would not squirm too violently if we spoke of the "fact" of abiogenesis at some time in the intervening period. In fact they might speak of weaseling if we avoided the term too religiously. But by all means speak of "assumptions" or the like if you insist. Personally I am not much fussed in this case, but to say "abiogenesis is a theory" grates on my ear, whereas "the body of theory dealing with abiogenesis" does not. (I had been going to write "the theory of abiogenesis" but that could ambiguously suggest the same as meaning as "abiogenesis is a theory".) JonRichfield (talk) 20:57, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

In "plain and specific English" the question of whether abiogenesis was a natural process or an miraculous event is not addressed by writing "We have pretty conclusive reason to suspect that life on Earth (or nearby, if you include panspermia in some form) did not exist say 6 GY BP and pretty conclusive reason to suspect that it does now." One can claim that there is nothing but the universe following the natural laws of physics from the beginning with a singularity until thermodynamic death, but that just pushes the first cause off a way. Who or what caused the laws of physics to favor a big bang? Are the laws of physics a deity sufficient for their own being and worthy of worship? The point of using "natural process" to describe abiogenesis seems to be inferring that not only is abiogenesis an idea but it is a true idea. That sort of thing belongs on philosophy pages not in [[Abiogenesis]]. The panspermia hypothesis is generally contrary to the assumptions of those working to understand a mechanism for abiogenesis, as is the suggestion of Nick Bostrom that the universe could be a sort of computer simulation. Those are published ideas. - Fartherred (talk) 22:50, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Errr... OK, I guess, but are we talking about the same thing? I certainly wasn't discussing miracles or even miracules, let alone worship, and I didn't think that SR was. I thought he and I understood each other fairly well, but perhaps if you re-read our exchange more carefully...? JonRichfield (talk) 08:25, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

We may not understand each others thinking perfectly as represented by what we wrote on the talk page but I think we are close enough to consensus to move forward with improving the article as time and ability permit. If disagreements show up that way, we can discuss them as they arise. - Fartherred (talk) 04:47, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I have to strongly object to the lead sentence as written now. The word "idea" can be interpreted as philosophy, and there are many arguments (creationists, etc) that in that direction. It means that if someone with that particular misconception reads that statement, they will stay misinformed. Abiogenesis is a process, and (when referring to the origin of life on Earth) an event. Philosophical articles start out like that; scientific articles should not. Arc de Ciel (talk) 08:41, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I object to the previous sentence in the lead: "Abiogenesis .... is the natural process by which biological life arose from inorganic matter." because 1) it is not supported by observation or experiment and is therefore not science 2) it is championing the point of view of a clique active on wikipedia, namely the atheist point of view 3) the position that all observable phenomena must arise from natural processes is a philosophical position and as such does not belong in the [[Abiogenesis]] article and 4) it is not referenced. One might call Abiogenesis a theory or a hypothesis, but there should be a reference for it. Even calling it a natural process would be considered if there were a reference from a source comparable to britannica.com supporting such. It would be wrong to have such an unscientific statement in the article, but after all, Wikipedia is not about being right or wrong, it is about having reliable sources well represented.

I grant that respectable scientific theories and whole areas of study have started out as ideas unsupported by experiment or specific observation, and in some cases took a long time to be properly supported and be more than a hypothesis. The idea usually comes before the experiment. Abiogenesis still languishes in the area of hypothesis.

So far "Abiogenesis .... is the idea that life arose from inorganic matter." is the best representation of reliable sources that has been offered, objections by editors, no matter how strong, not withstanding. It suffers from none of the faults I enumerated above. Some atheists might think that it is part of a Christian conspiracy to tweak the noses of any atheistic Wikipedians any time the opportunity arises, but this is not the case. The miraculous occurrence of abiogenesis is not part of the doctrine of any Christian group that I know of. Christians teach that it is proper to love benighted atheists, though not necessarily to associate with them lest some of their errors rub off. The word idea was put in its proper place to enlighten any atheist who considers it established scientific fact that abiogenesis is a natural process and is therefore sadly misinformed. - Fartherred (talk) 06:04, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Abiogenesis is a hypothesis. A hypothesis is nothing more than a proposed explanation. You don't need a source to call it one.98.209.42.117 (talk) 04:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree. However, I do not think that it would improve the article to substitute hypothesis for idea. - Fartherred (talk) 00:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It does suffer from the faults that I enumerated above. The simple statement that abiogenesis occurred is indeed established scientific fact, and is already supported by most of the sources in the article. (Contrary to what you seem to be saying, that statement does not exclude any role for a creator.)

A few explicit statements I found from a few minutes of searching: "the earliest living cells emerged as a result of chemical evolution on our planet billions of years ago in a process called abiogenesis" [1], "the origin of life...was a gradual process" [2],"the origin of life was a process initiated within..." [3], "the appearance of the first living things from nonliving origins, the process sometimes called abiogenesis" [4], and so forth. The word "natural" is superfluous and generally omitted (as in these examples) since this is a scientific article and science only deals with natural processes; but philosophical discussion doesn't belong in this article, as I pointed out and you restated, and I think that including the word helps to clarify what exactly is being discussed. You can also read any number of scientific journal articles that don't make such explicit statements but which simply take it for granted.

Also, your "atheists vs Christians" narrative isn't relevant to the issue. Arc de Ciel (talk) 03:21, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Your first quote was from Scientific American, to which I do not subscribe and which was unavailable to me. Your second quote left out "...first detailed exposition of the theory that living tissue was preceded upon Earth by a long and gradual evolution... ", a comment in a New York Times review which gives context. Your third quote is from a pdf file which I will wait to access until I use a computer that runs the proper software. The web page that I reached with the address accompanying your fourth quote did not contain the quoted text.

You may be assured that all four sources contain the quotes that I gave you. The fourth quote is at the top of page 47.

I do not see the relevance of your pointing out the "first detailed exposition" quote, which is not even on the same page. The source is one of the foundational books of the field, and your quote helps to illustrate this. (You may also notice that the paragraph refers to abiogenesis as a theory.)

You claim that including the word natural would help to "clarify what exactly is being discussed." However you did include in the article the bald statement that abiogenesis is the natural process by which life arose. This is opposed to abiogenesis being a miraculous event. The only sort of reasoning that I can think of to support such a statement is that there are only natural processes and no miraculous events so the completely unobserved event of abiogenesis must have been a natural process. Is this the reasoning by which you claim that abiogenesis is in a set with "anything confirmed beyond all rational/scientific doubt given our current state of knowledge" from talk even though the event was never observed. Is there some other reason? This is a philosophical position that you put into the article quite in opposition to the statement "...philosophical discussion doesn't belong in this article..." that you wrote above. That is why I reverted the edit that you made and Dominus Vobisdu supported. Nothing you have written so far in any way undermines the propriety of that action.

That abiogenesis occurred is a logical conclusion, following from the observation that life did not always exist, thus at some point it came into existence. The observation is indeed confirmed beyond all rational/scientific doubt.

Like I said, science only deals with natural processes. It is part of the description of science, and whether one thinks that other things than natural processes exist doesn't affect that; this is not a philosophical position except if you are attempting to philosophically redefine science itself. Thus my point that the word "natural" is redundant but using the word increases clarity.

(More specifically, science actually deals with reproducible processes. However, do not misinterpret this as implying that science cannot say anything about single events, which it can.)

If an atheist vs Christian narrative is out of place here, why did you begin it with "there are many arguments (creationists, etc) that [lead] in that direction."? Did I misunderstand you? Were you referring to Hindu creationists?

I was referring to a large group of people who believe demonstrably factually incorrect statements, including ones which might cause them to misinterpret the article.

I am well aware of the scientific process by which scientists make a hypothesis and "simply take it for granted" in their experiments. They hope that way to find supporting evidence or contradicting evidence. However, in the case of abiogenesis those who "simply take it for granted" and publish accounts of abiogenesis being a natural phenomenon without any supporting experiments are not engaging in science but propaganda. - Fartherred (talk) 23:24, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

No. When a statement taken for granted is allowed past peer review, that is generally a sign that it has been established beyond reasonable doubt. The main exception (which I think you're referring to) is where the scope of the paper is solely to argue "if X, then Y," which can happen when X is merely probable.

This is what is supported by experiment: Every living thing had its origin in one or more living cells. Abiogenesis contradicts that and is supported only by reasoning to what is thought to have occurred in the unobservable past. The details of that occurrence are in doubt. Some experimenters hope to provide evidence that abiogenesis is a natural process and illuminate details. - Fartherred (talk) 23:52, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The past is not unobservable in the sense that you are implying. As I said, there is no experimental doubt about the observation that life did not always exist. Whether or not details are in doubt is irrelevant to whether we know it actually happened - like we know that evolution or the American Civil War happened, despite not knowing all the details. Arc de Ciel (talk) 19:23, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems someone Wikichopped my little contribution to the discussion we see beforehand, even though it differs in no appreciable way in terms of subject-matter from the prior installments. It is very much a shame, but I will repost nonetheless. It seems to bear directly upon the main issue under this heading: which is, should abiogenesis be treated as a fact? Should the language and tenor of the article suggest that it is something scientifically established to have happened?

---"Like I said, science only deals with natural processes. It is part of the description of science, and whether one thinks that other things than natural processes exist doesn't affect that; this is not a philosophical position except if you are attempting to philosophically redefine science itself."--67.84.205.90 (talk) 08:05, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

It is manifestly true that science only deals with what is natural and testable. It can deal with unique events, but only insofar as observable evidence exists *today* that these unique events occurred (e.g. Cosmic Microwaves as evidence for the Big Bang). This evidence must be able to confirm or disconfirm theories of events past, and when overwhelming weight is on confirmation, science can issue a meaningful statement regarding such events.

It is also manifestly true that science does not by nature touch upon the supernatural. In fact, it doesn't even touch upon what is super-measurable, such as epistemology or ethics. So science must remain silent on the subject. For this reason, it is understood that scientists studying abiogenesis would ASSUME only natural processes at work and would not mention the supernatural, because there is nothing they could say about the supernatural. Abiogenesis is the study of life arising from non-life as a natural process, and the addition "natural process" could be considered redundant (as several here have pointed out) though considering the pitfalls surrounding the issue, a little over-clarification wouldn't seem that bad a thing.

From this, one can conclude that however abiogenesis is discussed, it is incorrect (and probably dishonest) to discuss abiogenesis in such a way as to suggest any abiogenic event has ever been demonstrated to have occurred, because there is as of yet no whiff of any understanding of any *natural mechanism* whereby anything that can plausibly be called life can emerge from anything that could plausibly be called non-life. As of now, science has no answer for someone who insists that a celestial pair of spirit hands engaged in deliberately creative acts to create life out of non-life. If you were to say "No! It happened via a natural mechanism!", this person would say "Alright then, what mechanism? Show me which hypothesis has been validated as to exactly how the transition occurred and how it was validated" and the scientist would have no answer, because no mechanism has been discovered; and our friend would not be compelled, scientifically or otherwise, to abandon his belief in spirit hands. Even if the mechanism is to be found, our friend could claim that there must be an intelligence behind the mechanism, and this would be a more purely Theological question. But until this mechanism is found, and until any scientist can provide us with good reason to believe that abiogenic processes exist, and there is thus (by Ockham's Razor) no need to assume spirit hands, it cannot be stated without dishonesty that such a thing as abiogenesis is a real phenomenon, just as it cannot be stated that there is a natural process--Is stupidity a natural process?--determining that I write on this talk page.67.84.205.90 (talk) 08:05, 15 February 2013 (UTC)BiggerDip

Never mind the theory, mind the lede

Folks, has anyone read the lede lately? I was about to re-state the opening sentence into something incontrovertible <cough>, cogent, coherent, and unobjectionable <hysterical cackling>. Then an insane impulse moved me to read the rest of the lede. It is a mess. Most of it, insofar as the concepts are sound or debatable, belong in the main text and should definitely not be in the lede. It also is badly stated and and badly structured. The only parts that don't belong in the main body of text don't belong anywhere else either. Does anyone envisage making rash offers? JonRichfield (talk) 14:27, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

From "Abiogenesis" to "essentially molten)" the text seems admirably suited to a lead. From "Hypotheses about" to "self-replication" the text seems informative but without a proper home in the article. - Fartherred (talk) 06:52, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Spontaneous generation called abiogenesis only recently

The article gives the impression that old ideas of spontaneous generation were once called abiogenesis. This cannot be the case because the word "abiogenesis" is first documented to have been used in English since 1870 (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Eleventh Edition) about the time that Darwin wrote Joseph Dalton Hooker about his ideas of abiogenesis. I will correct this false impression. - Fartherred (talk) 07:58, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Citation needed statements

The following statements have the {{cn}} tag, and were removed and put back. I am not knowledgeable enough on the science to research and find citations for them. I think someone should. If these have no basis in research, then they should be removed.

• The spontaneous formation of complex polymers from abiotically generated monomers under the conditions posited by the "soup" theory is not at all a straightforward process. Besides the necessary basic organic monomers, compounds that would have prohibited the formation of polymers were formed in high concentration during the Miller–Urey and Oró experiments.

• More fundamentally, it can be argued that the most crucial challenge unanswered by this theory is how the relatively simple organic building blocks polymerise and form more complex structures, interacting in consistent ways to form a protocell. For example, in an aqueous environment hydrolysis of oligomers/polymers into their constituent monomers would be favored over the condensation of individual monomers into polymers.

• Waves breaking on the shore create a delicate foam composed of bubbles. Winds sweeping across the ocean have a tendency to drive floating surface particles to shore. Possibly such shoreline sea foam and windblown organic particles could interact on the beach.

--Harizotoh9 (talk) 00:19, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Very outdated article, needs to mention new experiments

Science has progressed and the useless experiments mentioned on the article have since been replaced.

1) Sydney Fox's proteinoids were proven to be junk in the 1970s

"Sydney Fox and the other researchers managed to unite the amino acids in the shape of "proteinoids" by using very special heating techniques under conditions which in fact did not exist at all in the primordial stages of Earth. Also, they are not at all similar to the very regular proteins present in living things. They are nothing but useless, irregular chemical stains. It was explained that even if such molecules had formed in the early ages, they would definitely be destroyed."

S. W. Fox, K. Harada, G. Kramptiz, G. Mueller, «Chemical Origin of Cells», Chemical Engineering News, June 22, 1970, p. 80.

If the amino acids in his experiments were to be kept at a steady temperature, the amino acids would've disintegrated

Richard B. Bliss & Gary E. Parker, Origin of Life, California: 1979, p. 25.

2) Miller's experiment was based on conditions of the Earth which are now thought to be different (1993)

"Many scientists now suspect that the early atmosphere was different from what Miller first supposed. They think it consisted of carbon dioxide and nitrogen rather than hydrogen, methane, and ammonia. That's bad news for chemists.When they try sparking carbondioxide and nitrogen, they get a paltry amount of organic molecules- the equivalent of dissolving a drop of food colouring in a swimming pool of water. Scientists find it hard to imagine life emerging from such a diluted soup."

Ali Demirsoy, Kalı tı m ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Ankara: Meteksan Publishing Co., 1984, p. 61.

3) Miller admitted polymerization would not have occurred in his experiments (1998)

"Geologist now think that the primordial atmosphere consisted mainly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, gases that are less reactive than those used in the 1953 experiment. And even if Miller's atmosphere could have existed, how do you get simple molecules such as amino acids to go through the necessary chemical changes that will convert them into more complicated compounds, or polymers, such as proteins? Miller himself throws up his hands at that part of the puzzle. "It's a problem," he sighs with exasperation. "How do you make polymers? That's not so easy."

Cliff, Conner, «Evolution vs. Creationism: In Defense of Scientific Thinking», International Socialist Review (Monthly Magazine Supplement to the Militant), November 1980. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.87.144.212 (talk) 16:24, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Abiogenesis is not an idea, but a "set of hypothesis" or the "study of life arising from inorganic matter"

Dictionary.com is not a good source of definitions :P It compares spontaneous generation to abiogenesis — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.87.144.212 (talk) 16:26, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Definition

The first sentence of a lede should give the definition of the entry. Merriam-Webster is a good source for definitions. That Abiogenesis is often used for the specific case of the origin of life on earth is made perfectly clear in the second sentence of the lede. So, I still prefer my version of the first sentence (the definition of "a-bio-gen-esis" as "not-life-make-process".Northfox (talk) 08:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

A dictionary is not a suitable source for an article on a scientific topic (is the definition what scientists mean, or is it an historical meaning once held by some people with no knowledge of the subject?). I won't join the edit war at the moment, but the wording "spontaneous origination of living organisms directly from lifeless matter", is totally inappropriate in an encyclopedic article on the scientific topic. Judging from some of the recent edit summaries, some editors are confused about this topic as abiogenesis involves various hypotheses, all based on the opinion that determining how life probably arose on Earth should be the subject of rational investigation, rather than hocus pocus. Johnuniq (talk) 09:12, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. The definition they give for evolution is even funnier. TippyGoomba (talk) 09:25, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster is a non-technical source. Low quality and written by non-scientists. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 10:43, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Truly the lede in this article does need to be changed to move the bias of assuming this to be a fact rather than something that is a theory. There has been no experiments that have shown abiogenesis to be a viable explanation. Particularly Miller/Urey showed that a random creation of these protein molecules produced a result that prohibited amino acid formation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lebs27 (talk • contribs) 11:44, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Lebs27, reliable sources would need to be found before any such material could be included into the article. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 11:48, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I keep getting censored/talk sections deleted for pointing out the scientific ignorance of whoever edits this article. For the idiot who keeps changing this - hypothesis-observation-theory. Abiogenesis is a hypothesis. Harizotah9- reliable sources for something that has obviously never been demonstrated nor observed? None exist (OBVIOUSLY).Jinx69 (talk) 01:17, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Define "hypothesis" then? — raekyt 01:30, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

User:Jinx69 has been permabanned. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 09:34, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Harizotoh9: "Merriam-Webster is a non-technical source. Low quality and written by non-scientists." Please xcuse me when I laugh. I compared the definitions of the following words in Merriam-Webster with the first sentences in the ledes on their English Wikipedia pages. They look pretty much the same to me: osmosis, bird, ship, photon. Other words are described even better in M-W than in wikipedia, e.g. "moon". M-W even covers outdated concepts, such as "Phlogiston theory" pretty good. So, since it cannot be demonstrated that M-W is a low quality source, I suggest to change the abiogenesis definition to the M-W one. Northfox (talk) 13:26, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

addendum about the use of tertiary sources, which shows that it is okay to use an encyclopedia definition : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Primary.2C_secondary.2C_and_tertiary_sources Northfox (talk) 13:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

This is not the place to debate whether or not abiogenesis actually took place. (Another theory is that abiogenesis did not take place on earth. (http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/dna-meteorites.html) This is an article on a scientific theory, and should state the best current understanding of that theory according to standard scientific sources. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:15, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

It did take place, and this is scientifically uncontroversial - thus the word "hypothesis" is out of place, but your point about the possibility of panspermia is valid and I have edited the text to allow for that.

In the meantime, I have restored the original definition pending discussion (WP:BRD). My main concern (besides the points that have already been made about trying to use a dictionary definition for a technical scientific topic) is that to the best of our understanding, abiogenesis is a process and not a single event. I have made these points in a previous section above. Also, "inorganic" is more correct than "lifeless" as the generation of organic compounds is part of abiogenesis research; this is discussed in the article. Arc de Ciel (talk) 01:37, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

As I have demonstrated with many examples (see my above post with definitions of "osmosis, bird, ship, photon"), wikipedia very often and legitimately uses encyclopedia-style definitions. Arc de Ciel and others have to bring very good arguments against using a similar approach here. Just because this particular encyclopedic entry does not fit your world-view is not enough. A case for arbitration? Northfox (talk) 13:07, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

It's ridiculous to intentionally want to use low quality sources when high quality sources exist. The quality of an article is partly determined by the quality of sources used. Using such a low quality source will decrease the overall quality of an article. I can't see this article surviving GA review while using such a source in the lede. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 13:53, 23 January 2013 (UTC)--Harizotoh9 (talk) 13:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia often uses dictionary or encyclopedia definitions when they are uncontroversial. I don't think anyone would object to a dictionary definition of "bird" as a vertebrate with feathers. But, for a complicated scientific concept such as abiogenesis, clearly scientific books and papers are preferred sources. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:37, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Is it too complicated to put into present tense? Why is arises put back in past tense arose? Its a process. Processes are continuous and usually written in present tense. 'Especially whe in the first sentence of the lede, which gives the difinition. The second sentence gives the more narrow story of abiogenesis on earth, which, in the past tense, describes the once in a 4 b years event. Northfox (talk) 14:17, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Past tense in the 1st sentence of the lede is pretty anthropocentric. Just because a process is thought to have occured once in the past on earth, we cannot imagine this happening again in some other corner of the universe? Imagine someone finds ongoing abiogenesis on another world. By following the thought processes of the dominating editors of this article, that someone has to coin another word for what he found, because 'abiogenesis' is a thing of the past. By putting the definition in the past tense, abiogenesis is removed from the realm of natural science, since by its very own definition, it is a once in the past process. Never to be repeated, never repeatable. Is that what you want? I don't. Northfox (talk) 13:25, 26 January 2013 (UTC)