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Steve Zara's Avatar Jump to comment 15 by Steve Zara

Comment #399417 by Jos Gibbons

If you want to get people to accept evolution, they need to understand what it does and doesn't explain; and, since abiogenesis is somewhat scientifically weaker as of yet (at least in terms of details), we can't afford to have our sketchy knowledge of it dragging down evolution's evidentiary reputation.


I am not sure I agree. I have never much liked the abiogenesis/evolution divide myself. There was almost certainly a gradual appearance of the accurate replication of (mainly) DNA that we see today, and if the RNA model of the origin of life is right, then there would have been selection pressures based on nucleotide sequence as soon as the first self-replicating molecule appeared.

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:55:00 UTC | #382013