Do atheists believe in abiogenisis or do they see it as only a possibility?

Question

Is abiogenisis as a hypothesis as well constructed as other hypotheses in the scientific community? Does it have any quantitave aspects to it at all?

Thank you for the responces. to clarify my question: Is it scientific to say "there MUST be some form of abiogenisis" or is it proper to say "I dont know lets find out"

Also definition of abiogenisis
"The process where non living chemicals formed life by natural processes using CHANCE to gain the necessary structure"

By quantitative I mean is there some kind of normalized probability estimation?
or is it just "the necessary complexity was achieved over eons"

Answer 1

Definition of terms is needed here. If you disagree with any of the following, please clarify the meaning you intended.

|--: atheist = a person who believes, or is strongly inclined to believe, that there is no god or God of any kind.

|--: believe = to hold as true despite a lack of absolute proof and without overwhelming undisputed objective evidence.

|--: abiogenesis = the notion that life did or can arise from non-life.

Common sense says that if ever there was a period of non-life in the past, the current existence of life demonstrates that life arose from non-life at some point. (Various objections might well be raised to this reasoning, particularly if one holds unusual views on time or causality.)

In my experience, most atheists believe that at some point in the past, there was no life. Accordingly, it would seem they believe in abiogenesis as defined above, just as they believe in other tautological propositions.


If instead you mean some specific form of abiogenesis, such as the "chemical soup hypothesis", then I don't know of anyone that believes in it the way Christians believe in the Nicean creed. The various mechanisms that have been put forth are simply working hypotheses, subject to disproof and falsification the way all working hypotheses are.

As for "well-constructed hypothesis" -- I don't know what you mean here. Of the various specific abiogenetic mechanisms that have been proposed, such as Miller-Urey primordial soups with lightning or ultraviolet, or thermal vents, or Graham Cairns-Smith's clay crystals, it seems extremely doubtful that any of them could be proved correct as the explanation for the origin of life-as-we-know-it on Earth. However, it's quite plausible that any of the mechanisms proposed to date could be proved incorrect.

The various mechanisms have various quantitative aspects. For example, the Miller-Urey experiment has explanatory or predictive power only to the extent that the proposed chemical reactions take place over a timespan of milliseconds or days rather than millennia, at least at the ranges of temperature and pH expected for that era.

Answer 2

FIrst, you should understand that the story of Creation in the Bible is also a hypothesis of abiogenesis.

In other words, 'abiogenesis' is not so much a specific theory or hypothesis, but a class of theories or hypotheses that starts with the premise that there was once no life, now there is life, and asks the question, "How did that happen?"

So both athiests and theists have abiogenesis hypotheses. The only difference is that the theistic versions are not *scientific* hypotheses. This is *by definition*, since science can only deal with the laws of nature, and the theistic hypothesis invokes the supernatural. So although not all scientists are athiests, all athiests by definition have to side to the scientific versions of abiogenesis.

As for whether these scientific hypotheses have quantitative aspects? Absolutely. They all start with some quantitatively expressed assumptions about the conditions in the primordial earth.

But no, these hypothesis are not NEARLY as far along and supported by evidence as, say, the theory of evolution.

Answer 3

If you mean abiogenesis, then yes, they can, though there must be an intermediary act as everyone knows matter doesn't just appear out of a void. Atheists do not believe in a diety or supreme being. The hypothesis of abiogenesis relies on a non-biological generation of life (spontaneous generation) and not a supernatural power. So, a strong atheist would then believe in abiogenesis as this is a generic term for such a beginning.

Biopoiesis is such a transition, proposed by J. Haldane. A chemist, Urey, and his partner were actually able to create some amino-acids in a controlled experiment under this hypothesis. Over an even larger expanse of time, more complex structures must have formed, finally creating simple life-forms, which then evolved into more complex beings. Why not? :-)

Answer 4

An true atheist in my opinion does not have the capacity to
believe in anything...if he did, he wouldn't be an atheist.