Is Evolution responsible for the origin of life?

[Max]

I wonder how many people outside SD.net would automatically pick Evolution, just because Abiogenesis is so rarely mentioned in public. I'm sure not many (americans anyway) have even heard of Abiogenesis. Evolution has become so political, that abiogenesis has been left in the dust. I hope I articulated that well enough...it sounded better in my head.

I'm surprised that 11 people selected Evolution. I'm wondering if they are new to the boards, lol

[OmegaGuy]

Well there were a lot of misclicks I heard

[CmdrWilkens]

My guess is the 11 misclicks are people on the board in almost the same boat as what you mentioned much of the US is in: they hear all about evolution but unless they actually study more than high school biology its unlikely that they will recall abiogenisis. Thus unless they read the thread first and then clicked there is a decent chance many of those misclicks are people jumping at evolution because its the one term that has been drilled into our heads.

[wolveraptor]

It's just that every time we have these polls, it's always "evolution" vs. "some random half-assed idea" in a "What do you believe in"-type query. So a lot of people may have instinctively clicked "evolution"....like myself.

[Sriad]

It's just that every time we have these polls, it's always "evolution" vs. "some random half-assed idea" in a "What do you believe in"-type query. So a lot of people may have instinctively clicked "evolution"....like myself.

Indeed.

Without knowing what it means, "abiogenesis" could easily be some convoluted ID-ist plot. I mean, are the Creationists saying God is biological? No? "Well then God, clearly the origin of life, ie it's Genesis, is *A*biotic. Ahah! A new name for the same old shit!"

Seriously though, by the very definitions of the words it can only be abiotic. (brief mental images of rocks getting funky. uh...)

[General Zod]

It's just that every time we have these polls, it's always "evolution" vs. "some random half-assed idea" in a "What do you believe in"-type query. So a lot of people may have instinctively clicked "evolution"....like myself.

This is why reading the OPs before hand are important.

[wolveraptor]

No no, I actually knew what abiogenesis meant, and still did it. I even read the OP, or at least the title question. I just sort've mentally snickered to myself at the people who misclicked as I went to answer the poll, and promptly did it myself.

[Zac Naloen]

If this thread has taught me anything is that i've been spelling abiogenesis wrong for about 3 years.

The idea of life appearing via evolution is kinda kooky, for one if you know even the basics of the theory its clear that evolution happens because of the randomness of life and could not have been the cause.