Evolution: Is There Any Good Reason To Reject The Abiogenesis Hypothesis?

[rossum]

If you hold evolution and abiogenesis to be true, then you must also hold the story of the Garden of Eden to be false. Clearly all humanity could not be sprung from a single mated pair of humans, or the inbreeding would have led to extinction thru sterility within 7 generations.

You need to consider different scenarios, compatible with both science and Genesis. For example:

Start with a population of unsouled upright apes, call them “huma” because they are not quite human yet. God puts human souls into two of them, Adam and Eve, (or puts a soul into one male, Adam, and clones a female, Eve, from him). Adding a soul does not change the original huma DNA at all. We now have a pair of humans, Adam and Eve, in a population of huma. Adam and Eve are theologically distinct from the huma; they have souls. They are not biologically distinct, they have the same bones and the same DNA. Adam and Eve only mate with each other and have human children with souls. In order to avoid incest, and the consequent inbreeding, their children need to find mates outside their immediate family among the huma. Since huma have compatible DNA such couples are fertile – ‘open to life’. God gives souls to all the offspring of Adam’s children with the surrounding huma. The results of these matings are fully human, they have the correct DNA and they have a soul, given by God as they are descended from both Adam and Eve through one parent. God can continue to do the same for as long as required, ensouling all descendants of both Adam and Eve through either parent. Because only the descendants of the initial pair mate with ensouled huma, all the children from such matings are descended from both Adam and Eve since they will have both as grandparents, great-grandparents etc.

Over time the number of humans increases and the number of huma declines until the huma are extinct.

In scientific terms we have a large interbreeding huma/human population, as shown by the current level of genetic diversity in humans. Theologically all humans are descended from that first ensouled pair and so can inherit original sin. Since souls do not fossilize or affect DNA, science cannot tell whether or not a particular hominid fossil had a soul or not. At most, science can detect compatible DNA.

It is also worth noting that this scenario both avoids the problem with incest that goes with the more traditional interpretation and solves the problem of where Mrs. Cain and Mrs. Seth came from.

 

[Bradskii]

Hobgoblin:

non-rational homosapiens

What kind of creatures were they ?

You really shouldn’t leave yourself open to obvious answers that would place you in an unfavourable light.

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

Thanks for giving an example of the pap I was referring to.

You would do well to study it. Even briefly. All the arguments that you have ever put forward against it have only indicated to everyone that you know next to nothing about it.
How you can argue against something when you don’t understand it (as opposed to not accepting it - you don’t have to) has always been a mystery to me.

Since the topic here is shifted from abiogenesis to my knowledge base, not to derail the thread, I would in all honesty admit that I know next to nothing of how we got here, if we are speaking about the existential reality of the person, individually and as a kind of being, ultimately one in the spiritual body of Christ, in Love. If however, it concerns the knowledge base, the data and the theories which contain them, held by the social reality that is science, the converse is true. It is actually pretty straight forward and the more we know, the less acceptable are theories like abiogenesis and evolution

That matter addressed, let’s return to the OP.

Two reasons that immediately come to mind as to why we should reject the abiogensis hypothesis are:

• matter by its own inherent properties cannot come together in the anatomical and physiological structures found in and are necessary for life. That atoms are arranged as they are forming the shape and activities of living forms, is fact. To say they did so randomly is to suggest a mechanism that is beyond the boundaries of today’s definition of science, as is intelligent design. A theory of abiogenesis is pseudoscience.
• Living organisms have complex relationships with forms of being that are other to themselves. While molecular interactions that determine the physical form, the living entity operates on a very different level, ingesting external matter to maintain itself as something more than a collection of atoms, procreating, perceiving, thinking and feeling about elements in the environment and behaving in particular ways that define what it is. We here are an exampe of this and within ourselves we can get a sense of our temporal and ontological origins. Something else took place, more than a coming together of atoms. Abiogenesis is a reductionistic pseudo-explanation.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Aloysium:

Thanks for giving an example of the pap I was referring to.

You would do well to study it. Even briefly. All the arguments that you have ever put forward against it have only indicated to everyone that you know next to nothing about it.
How you can argue against something when you don’t understand it (as opposed to not accepting it - you don’t have to) has always been a mystery to me.

Since the topic here is shifted from abiogenesis to my knowledge base, not to derail the thread, I would in all honesty admit that I know next to nothing of how we got here…

As regards evolution? You got that right.