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From: bch@unc.UUCP (Byron Howes )
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Abiogenesis
Message-ID: <6713@unc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Feb-84 08:51:47 EST
Article-I.D.: unc.6713
Posted: Tue Feb  7 08:51:47 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Feb-84 00:55:43 EST
References: <1657@cbscc.UUCP>
Organization: University of North Carolina Comp. Center
Lines: 26

In response to my comment that abiogenesis is not central to evolutionary
theory, Paul Dubuc writes:

  Where do you get species without life in the first place?  It seems that
  there must be *some* theory of life's origin that is inherent to evolutionary
  theory.  Don't tell me this question is irrelevant.  I don't believe that.
  If not abiogenesis, what then?

There *are* other theories of the origin of life on earth which range from
the reasonable to the ridiculous.  Meteoric contamination is one possi-
bility which certainly can't be overlooked.  Certainly the notion of some
form of "compact intervention" is not incompatible with evolutionary 
theory either, though that form would be incompatible with the Genesis
accounts of creation.  There are also those who think life was beamed here
by intelligences on some other planet (obviously most people don't take
this seriously.)

While most evolutionary theorists may *also* subscribe to some theory of
abiogenesis, the two are not necessarily linked.  Abiogenesis deals with
the emergence of life from non-life.  Evolutionary theory deals with the
problem of given a relative uniformity of life, how do we get speciation.
-- 

					Byron Howes
					UNC - Chapel Hill
					(decvax!mcnc!unc!bch)