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Over-stated lead sentence

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I understand that this page is constantly subject to unscientific vandalism and distortion. However, to refer to "THE natural process by which life ARISES" is an inaccurate summary of scientific knowlege. We do not understand the chemical processes of abiogenesis or whether there can be only one such process, and we have no evidence that it occurred more than once. Perhaps it was inevitable and life exists on many planets, perhaps it was just very good luck and Earth is unique. It overstates our knowledge to say that life naturally arises.

To emphasize the uncertaintly about the chemical processes, I propose:

Abiogenesis is the a natural process by which life arises from non-living matter,

Or to emphasize the historical question of how it happened on Earth:

Abiogenesis is the natural process by which life arises arose from non-living matter,
It's not your or my place to temper what we feel to be an overreaching on the part of the reliable sources. To be frank, your revisions only introduce awkwardness to the prose borne from an apparent lack of engagement with said sources. Remsense ‥  14:11, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Odds

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The article seems to assume the probability of life occurring on a given Earthlike planet is reasonably high, but actually we have no evidence for that. "We don't know the mechanism whereby nonlife turns into life, so we have no way of estimating the odds … It may be one in a trillion trillion..." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-equation-tallies-odds-of-life-beginning1/ Justin the Just (talk) 03:33, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In that article you linked to, all I see under the heading Here is the equation: is a blank grey rectangle. If you can see it, could you please copy it here? HiLo48 (talk) 03:40, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Try here www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4961144/ Justin the Just (talk) 03:45, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Adapted:
where
  • E is the average number of origin-of-life events for a given planet,
  • BB is the number of building blocks on planet
  • O is the mean number of building blocks needed per "organism"
  • A is availability of building blocks during time t
  • P(ɑ) is the probability of assembly during time t
Remsense 03:53, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. So it's just another equation requiring huge assumptions and guesses. HiLo48 (talk) 04:12, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Remsense 04:13, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The article assumes no such thing: we have no way of knowing that the probability is low either, given we have a sample size of exactly one. All that we can discuss is what work has been done on the subject. Remsense 03:35, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can we not say the probability might be low or high? Justin the Just (talk) 03:38, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, because it's a meaningless statement. We reflect what our sources have to say, which tend to be concerned with what we can know, not what we can't. Remsense 03:39, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This bit "The challenge for abiogenesis (origin of life)[7][8][9] researchers is to explain how such a complex and tightly interlinked system could develop by evolutionary steps, as at first sight all its parts are necessary to enable it to function." implies that all the steps are evolutionary and none of them are freakishly unlikely random events. But with a big enough universe such events can't be ruled out. "One origin of life on Earth could be the result of a remarkable and inexplicable pathway to life. " [1] Justin the Just (talk) 10:18, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia articles are supposed to be based on what sources reliable for the subject (in this case, biology sources) say and not on what "cannot be ruled out". --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:36, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the field redefines the challenges they are facing, then that will be reflected in the article. For now, we are covering what they do. Remsense 11:40, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I found an actual estimate of the odds in what I think is an RS "Our results find betting odds of >3:1 that abiogenesis is indeed a rapid process versus a slow and rare scenario..." [2] Justin the Just (talk) 16:24, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed edits to lede

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I have reverted this good-faith edit to the lede, which was made unilaterally, as there is a comment in the source reading "Please do not change the lead paragraph without first discussing on the talk page." Discussion on the proposed edit and on whether we should move or remove the etymology and whether the lede is overly wikified can take place here. 166.181.85.103 (talk) 00:06, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have reinstated the change since you made no specific objections to it. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 03:25, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would object to the removal of "origin of life" as an WP:ALTNAME and that the etymology information was removed from the article completely instead of moved to a non-lede section. But hopefully others will offer input. 166.181.85.103 (talk) 06:12, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Etymology is mainly dictionary material. This article is about the concept of abiogenesis, not the word. It's not a even a "real" etymology anyway, as this word was coined in the 19th century from Greek roots. Nor is this fact particularly important. If you can find some discussion of it in a source, then feel free to add it back somewhere else, but it sure doesn't belong as clutter in the lead. WP:ALTNAME says "The editor needs to balance the desire to maximize the information available to the reader with the need to maintain readability. Use this principle to decide whether mentioning alternative names in the first sentence, elsewhere in the article, or not at all." And shoehorning in "origin of life" as a bolded alternative name is just clutter that makes the opening sentence more awkward, that anyone reading can easily gather that this is what the article's about anyway. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 21:40, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The article should be called "Origin of life" as that is the common name. "Abiogenesis" is so technical that even though I have read much on this topic I don't remember seeing it. I realize that I'm reopening the name question; I'm not sure how one should do that. Any suggestions? Zaslav (talk) 05:48, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not really that technical of a term. Remsense 05:50, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not too technical to those who already know it, but compared to "Origin of life" it is much less known and quite technical. Zaslav (talk) 20:11, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do think precision trumps recognizability in the WP:CRITERIA here—we could retitle Ornithology to Study of birds, but I don't think we should. Much of the potential downside here is mitigated by our use of redirects.Remsense ‥  20:25, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Quebec data

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The last paragraph of the introduction of the article states in part "Fossil micro-organisms appear to have lived within hydrothermal vent precipitates dated 3.77 to 4.28 Gya from Quebec..." It seems to me that this statement is based on findings from one group of researchers, concerning the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt, that are not widely accepted. (In contrast to the data from Australia which are widely accepted.) If so, I would suggest that this statement about the findings in Canada could be changed to indicate that this is not widely agreed upon. For example, it could be changed to say "Some studies have suggested that fossil micro-organisms may have lived within hydrothermal vent precipitates dated 3.77 to 4.28 Gya from Quebec..." T g7 (talk) 04:58, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree; if it is not generally accepted then it should be qualified. Zaslav (talk) 05:45, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
do you have any sources that explicitly disagree with the Quebec data? Just because research is singular does not mean it is controversial. Remsense ‥  03:27, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301926822001723?via%3Dihub 01:26, 10 October 2024 (UTC) T g7 (talk) 01:26, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Remsense ‥  06:01, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hypothesis vs Aristotle's "theory"

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Given the article accurately emphasizes that abiogenesis is a hypothesis and does not yet qualify as a scientific theory, should the word 'theory' be used when describing Aristotle's position of 'spontaneous generation'? Khilker15 (talk) 18:53, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The term "theory" can be misleading, because it can be either for a scientific theory or for its informal usage, a mere guess based on some limited clues and some intuition. As this is a scientific topic, I would suggest to use "theory" only when we meant "scientific theory", and avoid the second meaning as much as possible, using synonyms if needed. As for Aristotle, the scientific method did not exist yet at the time of the ancient Greeks, so they could never have formulated a scientific theory to begin with. Cambalachero (talk) 19:20, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The spontaneous generation page does use the term "scientific theory". Scientific theories and the scientific method are not the same. I don't think there is an issue using the 'theory of spontaneous generation' as numerous scientists did believe this until it was disproven by Pasteur in the 19th century. For sure abiogenesis is a hypothesis, though. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:55, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The so-called scientific method (I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that, anyhow) is a recent creation in the history of science. There was science long before the scientific method. Zaslav (talk) 20:12, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Habitable" Earth in top figure

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In the figure, the "habitable world" picture is today's earth, which has little in common with the habitable earth of 4.x billion years ago. I think it would be better to show a picture that plausibly depicts an initial habitable earth (which, of course, would be deadly to most current life). I'm not able to arrange this myself; sorry. Zaslav (talk) 03:49, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The image is similar to the image in the research paper cited in the caption [3]. Ramos1990 (talk) 04:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The image is not meant to be "Earth when abiogenesis took place", but rather an "habitable planet" as a concept. Modern Earth gives the idea better than a hellfire ball would. Cambalachero (talk) 21:54, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Very true. But I get the reason why it was brought up. Ramos1990 (talk) 10:20, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]