Is Abiogenesis a fact?

The truth is there is absolutely no real evidence to call abiogenesis a fact, at least on earth. For all we know, life was seeded on the earth from outer space.Furthermore, we can't even say inaminate matter preceded life. It could be and probably is the other way around. Life could have preceded matter and helped to create or form matter. Of course, it would not be biological life.The origin of biological life is a mystery as far as science is concerned or scientific facts are concerned, imo.

I don't really see how scientific perspective can confirm that something we have no evidence for happened myself. There are alternative explanations, such as life came here from another planet to life embedded prior to the beginning of the universe (but not biological life).You can dismiss those as lacking evidence for, but no more so abiogenesis which is a form of spontaneous generation.

It means if we are speculating on WAGs (wild-assed guesses) such as abiogenesis that have never been observed, there are all sorts of possibilities. In no way is abiogenesis "the only way it could have happened." Truth be told, we just don't know.1. Life could have come here from somewhere else.
2. Life could have existed in some other form and evolved into or somehow changed into life in biological form.Edited by randman, : No reason given.

Please define "supernatural entity". Imo, your statement is well-nigh absurd. If an intelligent entity, whether God, angels, aliens, human beings or anything at all acted within the universe, it is not "supernatural" or not exclusively supernatural and so can be considered within the domain of scientific investigation.The whole let's exclude anything "supernatural" presupposes a good understanding of what is "natural."So what is natural?Is artificial selection and gene splicing "natural" for example?Is material or physical what is meant by "natural" and if so, is a particle "natural" when it exists in an undefined state as a quantum potential?Does "natural" in opposition to "supernatural" just mean "real", and if that is the case and if God is real, then why are insist that it is wrong to consider anything that God could do?In fact, who says we cannot test for something God has done? Maybe we can figure out how God did something and do it ourselves and demonstrate how God did it and verify the whole idea.Edited by randman, : No reason given.

ringo, all life as we know it is biological, but if we are going to speculate, it could be life exists that is not biological.We don't know, but it's certainly a possibility, just as abiogenesis is. In fact, for all we know, life in some form predates the Big Bang.Edited by randman, : No reason given.

So are you saying "supernatural" is by definition the same as unreal.

So if life in reality arose via God, then science by definition must insist that a lie be true just because of an arbitrary distinction between what one generation calls supernatural and natural?Wouldn't that mean we should never trust scientific theories at all if there is even the possibility of God being involved, and that your version of science is fatally flawed?

Also, you have to define "natural" to assess whether something is a "natural" cause?What is "natural"?

I don't think so, and in fact that seems kind of absurd. What if life forms exist as thoughts and light or in whatever space or connections that make up entanglement or non-locality?
What if life forms exist that can be physical or non-physical at will?

Well then, failure to recognize the limits of the "tool" means the one handling it perhaps is servant to the tool rather than the other way around. Frankly, it is offensive, on the one hand, to hear people insist a theory is true because it is the "only valid" explanation and then insist on rules that eliminate a perfectly valid explanation just because someone has a peculiar defintion of supernatural. I mean just using the word "supernatural" as a science term is dumb. From a scientific perspective, God or any real thing is not supernatural at all since there is no definition in science for what constitutes supernatural. It makes no sense then to use a term applied to science as something science rules out that has no meaning in a scientific sense at all. That's where you are wrong. Science abandoned "naturalism" a long time ago with the advent of quantum physics. This is the21st century, not the 19th. Classical concepts of naturalism are outdated.I challenge you to define "natural" in a meaningful sense here. Is, for example, the will of human beings "natural"?Edited by randman, : No reason given.Edited by randman, : No reason given.

The person using the hammer doesn't believe the hammer can tell him what to think and believe. Adopting a tool to give you answers for things knowing that the tool will rule out plausible answers is deliberate self-delusion. So if detect God or angels or the human spirit or consciousness or anything, it ceases to be supernatural? Under this definition, we could safely assume perhaps gravity was or is supernatural but becomes natural as our technology increases to the point we can actually empirically detect gravity waves or whatever it is.Imo, this definition you offered is wholly vacous, as you say. Supernatural is not a description of something, but a description of our abilities to detect something at any given time and with increased technology, things can become "natural" that were formerly supernatural. Heck, electrons were thus supernatural at one point. No, what's offensive is scientists and others using a term within science in a scientific discussion but which has no scientific meaning. There is no scientific meaning for supernatural is there? How do you test to see if something is supernatural? Where is the evidence that something is supernatural?Seems like you are using it just as an abitrary term to denigrate scientific exploration of ideas you think shouldn't be explored? How do you know something cannot be tested? Can string theory be tested? It cannot really be tested right now. Does that mean the fabric of the universe is supernatural? That depends on what you mean by supernatural. It certainly defies naturalism if you are talking about classical physics.For example, QM predicted the principle of entanglement, which some balked at once they realized this. Einstein balked somewhat and called it "spooky action at a distance."Well, we can demonstrate it now, but we have no idea how this works. How can particles seeming to be physically separated work as one system such that they are non-local. Doesn't really make sense, but it works.Quantum physics really demonstrates that the design of a thing, the information/energy state, is fundamental and the discrete or "natural" form is a derived or secondary state that appears from the original thing itself. As such, what constitutes "material" is not the same as classical naturalism.So though with our physical observations we see 2 entangled particles as separated, they are actually not separated in their fundamental state. The derived and secondary state, the physical forms, are separated, but since what they are is not primarily the actual forms, but the information state, they are actually still connected and non-separable.But it's a little hard to discuss since you won't offer any definition of what is "natural" and avoid my questions such as asking whether the will of man is natural or not.Edited by randman, : for clarity

crash, my sentiment is that the word "supernatural" just does not belong in science discussions. If something is supernatural in a layman's sense, fine, but that doesn't mean it is not real or natural or whatever for science. The term and distinction has no place in science, either to include or exclude ideas.

So I just imagined the term abiogenesis?

So calling these things supernatural is just asserting an unproven belief that we will never be able to detect or interact with such entities? Sorry, but if they are real, they are then natural if natural just means something that might could be observed or it's effects observed. I guess that included electrons and all sorts of things at one time then.I think the following sums it up. QM actually studies what the material or natural world actually is. The sort of methodological naturalism you espouse ignores quantum physics and is wholly outdated. You mentioned you had studied quantum physics. It is hard to imagine that and never heard of entanglement, which is a very basic prediction of QM. I believe you, but it shows you didn't learn that much on QM. It's interesting that quantum physics sounds like mysticism to you. I think in some respects it does and illustrates exactly what I am talking about. Former mystical principles are now studied by science and applied, even to the computer chip designs in your PC. Once again, this is the 21st century, not the 19th. So once again, were electrons supernatural 150 years ago? When did they become natural? Well, I am not surprised, but if you think about how our understanding of the natural world changed and understood that, you might see it. Methodological naturalism and classical physics would say that what something is would be it's physical and material form. So we would look at 2 entangled particles and say, hey, there are 2 particles.The information or design of something is a description of what something is, but not the thing in itself.QM says the non-observed pattern or design is actually what the thing is, and the discrete physical form is merely a description of the thing itself that exists as a potential for various things, and even exists when there is absolutely no discrete form at all.So even though we observe 2 separated particles, quantum physics predicted entangled particles would act as one system so much so that affecting one instantly affects the other, regardless of the distance involved (even if billions of light years apart). Quantum physics turned out to be right, and the principle of entanglement is actually used in applied technology.Now, why is this relevant? Because it shows that what we would have called material or physical is not the primary property of what constitutes a natural thing, and in fact, things exist even when they have no discrete physical form. In other words, the design is the thing, and the form is the description, not the other way around.

You assert the term supernatural and yet it is nothing more than a statement of ignorance and not an absolute quality, thus making your premise meaningless.So let's break down what you are claiming. You are claiming that if God does anything, science must insist that God could not have.And you think that makes sense?You also fail to recognize that we can detect design or creation and so infer a Creator. We do that with gravity. We cannot detect gravity directly but only it's effects, and so we consider gravity real. Well, we detect the effects of God in the real world all the time. These are natural, not supernatural, effects. So your whole argument is just plain wrong.Now, if you want to insist that these natural effects cannot be the result of an Intelligent Cause, be my guest, but a priori ruling out an Intelligent Cause is not good science, but bogus crap. The evidence we see is best seen as the result of an Intelligent Cause, not of mere chance.One of the problems with the way you think of methodological naturalism is that contained within that is a false idea of what is natural or material, and that was why I brought up quantum physics. QM shows and predicted for example the principle of entanglement which demonstrates that a non-observed identity defines and controls the observed world. Information is central and material is secondary. Some of the implications of that are that the laws and information defining the world likely preceded the actual material rather than simply evolving as a byproduct of it. The design is the thing, and the material form is a byproduct of it.Now, we know from the act of human creation how design is produced. Why should we exclude the knowledge of human creation from considering how design could be produced?Moreover, can physicality even take on definite and discrete form without a conscious observer?There are giants in the field of QM that have stated no discrete form exists until it is observed.