# How Did Life Begin? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 17, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144 "2009-10-17T16:05:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/1 "2009-10-17T16:05:00Z")
How did life begin? (NOTE: I accidentally forgot to post a poll on the duplicate thread so ignore that one). ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/2 "2009-10-17T16:08:17Z")
Well, the actual origins of life have nothing to do with evolution really, but everything after life (mysteriously, I’ll admit) appeared has been a product of naturalistic evolution. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/3 "2009-10-17T16:45:02Z")
Can you explain the difference between “naturalistic evolution” and “theistic evolution”? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/4 "2009-10-17T16:53:53Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Can you explain the difference between “naturalistic evolution” and “theistic evolution”? Naturalistic evolution is evolution without God wihile theistic evolution is one with God. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/5 "2009-10-17T16:56:36Z")
I voted “Naturalistic Evolution”, but I want it to be clear that biological evolution as commonly understood cannot by definition be the origin of life, since it only applies to living organisms. Still, I suspect that life arose gradually by some processes that could be called evolution in a broad definition. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/6 "2009-10-17T16:57:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Can you explain the difference between “naturalistic evolution” and “theistic evolution”? Theisitic evolution is related to intelligent design. The theory is that some higher being, like God or a Pak Protector or the Soro, observed existing lifeforms and gave their genes an occasional nudge in the direction he wanted them to go. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/7 "2009-10-17T16:58:38Z")
Abiogenesis. In other words, “Other.” Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. It only kicks in when there’s life to work with. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/8 "2009-10-17T17:48:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Other (Please State) It wanted to. The potential for being alive is and always was intrinsic to the underpinnings (laws of physics). The manifestation we are familiar with (carbon-based, DNA-RNA replication technique, etc) is probably not the only possible version. For that matter it’s probably not the only _extant_ version. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/9 "2009-10-17T18:02:04Z")
Other. Evolution is irrelevant to the origin of life. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/10 "2009-10-17T18:14:00Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > Other. > > Evolution is irrelevant to the origin of life. This is my vote. Life began through some as yet mysterious process which was probably roughly analogous to evolution. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/11 "2009-10-17T18:25:45Z")
This poll reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the terms. The theory of evolution is not concerned with the origin of life; it’s the origin of **species**. There is, at present, no widely accepted theory of abiogenesis. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/12 "2009-10-17T18:32:23Z")
Title needs to be changed then. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/13 "2009-10-17T18:41:11Z")
> [@Noone\_Special](#): > > Abiogenesis. In other words, “Other.” > > Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. It only kicks in when there’s life to work with. This may be true, but I imagine that this is what the OP meant when he referred to “naturalistic evolution”. And evolution need not be confined to life. One can create evolving algorithms in software, for instance. Evolution at heart is simply a theory that points out that things which by random chance end up as being able to stay around will naturally stay around. And of course “life” is itself a fairly hairy concept. We are just walking chemical reactions of high complexity. The earliest forms of things that eventually became life would be nothing more than self-perpetuating chemical reactions, but that’s not really all that much different from our current state. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/14 "2009-10-17T19:06:32Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Title needs to be changed then. True enough. But the fact that the **Curtis** misunderstands something so basic makes it unlikely that he’s going to be able to engage in an intelligent discussion on the topic. It’s as if he started talking a thread on, say, American history asking whether Abraham Lincoln’s ownership of a slave-worked plantation made the Emancipation Proclamation hypocritical. ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/15 "2009-10-17T19:15:20Z")
One more vote for Other: Naturalistic abiogenesis. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Onimous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@Ann\_Onimous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Onimous)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/16 "2009-10-17T21:58:33Z")
I don’t know. I wasn’t there when it happened. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/17 "2009-10-17T22:17:25Z")
Other, because, as explained above, abiogenesis is not evolution. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/18 "2009-10-17T22:33:39Z")
Well, when a mommy life and a daddy life love each other very much… ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/19 "2009-10-17T22:44:58Z")
I voted “naturalistic” but I meant abiogenesis. What’s with all these badly worded polls? ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144/20 "2009-10-17T22:46:12Z")
No idea. But I know it wasn’t evolution. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-life-begin/514144.md?page=2)