# Talk:Abiogenesis

I would like to change "The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities on Earth was not a single event,..." to "The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that transitioning from non-living to living entities on Earth or elsewhere is not a single event,..." While the notion that life on Earth originated on Earth is still wide spread, no one seems to believe Earth is the only possible venue, with active searches for life on Mars, Europa and planets outside the solar system. And recent research  including dating LUCA to a few hundred million years after the Earth formed, has greatly compressed the time window for abiogenesis on Earth--agr (talk) 14:46, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. Rather than wordsmithing the lead, especially the first paragraph, we should focus on evidence, i.e. sources in the article body, or which should be there (given this article is at the top of a tree of articles on the subject). We have at best very thin evidence for a change in the direction you suggest, and the last paragraph of the lead remains true. If there is something substantial to add to the article body, then we may need to update the lead. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:59, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
There's this one source for "recent research including dating LUCA to a few hundred million years after the Earth formed, has greatly compressed the time window for abiogenesis on Earth":
Moody, Edmund R. R.; Álvarez-Carretero, Sandra; Mahendrarajah, Tara A.; Clark, James W.; Betts, Holly C.; et al. (12 July 2024). "The nature of the last universal common ancestor and its impact on the early Earth system". Nature Ecology & Evolution. 8 (9): 1654–1666. Bibcode:2024NatEE...8.1654M. doi:10.1038/s41559-024-02461-1. PMC 11383801. PMID 38997462.
CheckNineEight (talk) 07:01, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
I've added this to the 'Earliest evidence' section, and tweaked the lead. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:36, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

 This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 September 2025 and 5 December 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Tvonich (article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by Tvonich (talk) 22:19, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

I propose adding a subtitle in the “Pre-1960s conceptual history” section about the term biopoesis. This term was introduced by N. W. Pirie in 1953 as an alternative to abiogenesis. While abiogenesis—coined by T.H. Huxley in 1870—became the dominant term in scientific literature, biopoiesis was argued by Pirie to be more appropriate, since poesis (“to make”) better captures the idea of life coming from a non-life. From  a strict linguistic standpoint, abiogenesis could be read as "absence of life generation" as opposed to "origin of life from nonliving matter." Genesis also tends to be a word tied to biological reproduction when the intent is to emphasize a non-living source. This would provide helpful historical context about how terminology for this field evolved and a summary for the argument that biopoesis may be more suitable. Tvonich (talk) 23:51, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. However biology is full of used-once proposals for graeco-latinate terminology; it doesn't add anything material to the science, ie what actually happened; Wikipedia is not a dictionary; and this article is constantly pushing at the upper limit of acceptable length. So, if it's all right with everybody, I would be inclined to skip this one. Chiswick Chap (talk) 04:34, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
I'd suggest to, at the very least, add "also known as biopoiesis" or something like that to the lead opening sentence. CheckNineEight (talk) 23:26, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
That's what I'll do. This article has biopoesis already, but appears incorrect in its attribution so I'll make the main edit there. Tvonich (talk) 19:05, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

HCN is noted as a critical precursor in origin of life hypotheses, with no mention of how it would have been formed. This edit would add the following after the first sentence of the Nucleobases section: "On early Earth, HCN has been shown in modelling experiments to have likely been supplied via photochemical production in transient, highly reducing atmospheres (see Prebiotic atmosphere) following major impacts."  (Wogan et al, 2023)
Prebiotic atmosphere would contain additional details. Tvonich (talk) 22:27, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia needs to have science literate editors. Abiogenesis is a scientific theory. It is not a process. A process is something observed. It is very unsettling for someone like me with an engineering degree with a a lot of chemistry and physics and calculus to have their accurate comments reverted. Meh130 (talk) 23:36, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

I suggest reading question 3 of the Evolution FAQ (Q3: Why is evolution described as though it's a fact? Isn't evolution just a theory?). That should pretty much cover your question here. --McSly (talk) 23:48, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Abiogenesis is not evolution. Evolution is observable. But I did make a mistake calling Abiogenesis a theory. It is correctly called a hypothesis. A theory requires a large body of evidence. The evidence for Abiogenesis is limited to the Miller–Urey experiment which had a lot of flaws. My whole point is it is wrong to call Abiogenesis a "process." A "hypothetical process", a "theoretical process" but not a "process" with no descriptor, which assumes it is a proven fact. That is simply untrue. Meh130 (talk) 23:55, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
The sane can be said of every science article, indeed of almost every imaginable topic. All knowledge is revisable; we don't need to keep going on about it. The thing is, it's subject to scrutiny, new evidence, and a mass of experimental investigation, unlike theological viewpoints which are not relevant here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:42, 1 November 2025 (UTC)
The evidence for Abiogenesis is limited to the Miller–Urey experiment
Obviously not true, if this very article on abiogenesis is anything to go by. The Miller–Urey only proves that natural formation of various amino acids from simple chemistry is possible, but we've since figured out various other processes for other molecule types as well, such as nucleotides and fatty acids.(see also: Fischer–Tropsch reaction) Also, Miller–Urey is not "the evidence for Abiogenesis", it's a demonstration of one of various scenarios for amino acid formation; there have been variations of the experiment because the original one did not make a more accurate atmospheric composition for the early Earth. There are other processes for prebiotic amino acid formation, some are concomitant to the prebiotic formation of nucleotides.

CheckNineEight (talk) 01:29, 5 November 2025 (UTC) CheckNineEight (talk) 01:29, 5 November 2025 (UTC)