Abiogenesis has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: May 7, 2022. (Reviewed version).

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Abiogenesis received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which was archived on February 2009. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

view · edit Frequently asked questions Some users have noted that many of these questions should be included in the text of Abiogenesis. The reason for their exclusion is discussed below. The main points of this FAQ (Talk:Abiogenesis#FAQ) can be summarized as: The occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among scientists, and there is ongoing research and competing hypotheses for how abiogenesis could have occurred. Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy requires that minority views not be given undue emphasis. It is against Wikipedia policy for views without scientific support, such as all known objections to abiogenesis, to be included in a science article like Abiogenesis. More detail is given on each of these points, and other common questions and objections, below. To view the response to a question, click the [show] link to the right of the question. Q1: Why won't you add criticisms or objections to abiogenesis in the Abiogenesis article? A1: Our policies on Wikipedia, in particular WP:WEIGHT and WP:FRINGE, require us to provide coverage to views based on their prominence within reliable sources, and we must reflect the opinion of the scientific community as accurately as possible. While there are scientific objections to hypotheses concerning abiogenesis, general objections to the overall concept of abiogenesis are largely found outside of the scientific community, for example, in religious literature and is not necessary to hash out the evolution-vs.-creationism debate, per WP:NECESSARY. There are articles covering some of those religious views, including Objections to evolution, Creationism and Creation myth, but we cannot provide significant weight to religious opinions within a science article, per our policies. Further information: WP:Neutral point of view § Undue weight Q2: Why is abiogenesis described as though it's a fact? Isn't abiogenesis just a theory? A2: A "theory" in science is different than a "theory" in everyday usage. When scientists call something a theory, they are referring to a scientific theory, which is an explanation for a phenomenon based on a significant amount of data. Abiogenesis is a phenomenon scientists are trying to explain by developing scientific theories. While there isn't one unifying theory of abiogenesis, there are several principles and competing hypotheses for how abiogenesis could have occurred, which are detailed in the article. Wikipedia describes the phenomenon of abiogenesis as a fact because the reliable sources from the peer-reviewed scientific literature describe it as a fact. Compare it with the theory of gravity, by Isaac Newton. It explains how gravity works, and it was superseded when Albert Einstein provided a more complete explanation. That doesn't mean that the factual existence of gravity was ever held in doubt. See also: WP:Scientific consensus and WP:Scientific point of view Q3: But isn't abiogenesis unproven? A3: The scientific evidence is consistent with and supports an origin of life out of abiotic conditions. No chemical, biological or physical law has been discovered that would prevent life from emerging. Clearly, abiogenesis happened, because life exists. The other option is that life is a product of a supernatural process, but no evidence to support this has been published in reliable sources. There is plenty of evidence that nearly all the components of a simple cell can and do form naturally, but it has not yet been shown how molecules eventually formed self-replicating protocells and under what environmental conditions. Q4: Abiogenesis is controversial, so why won't you teach the controversy? A4: Abiogenesis is not controversial according to the reliable, published sources within the scientific community. Also, see Question 1. Abiogenesis is, at best, only controversial in social areas like politics and religion. Indeed, numerous respectable scientific societies, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences, have issued statements denouncing creationism and/or ID.[1] In 1987, only about 0.15% of American Earth and life scientists supported creationism.[2] Thus, as a consequence of Wikipedia's policies, it is necessary to treat abiogenesis as mainstream scientific consensus. Besides panspermia, there are no scientifically supported "alternatives" for this view. Q5: Has abiogenesis ever been observed? A5: No. How this happened is still conjectural, though no longer purely speculative. Q6: How could life arise by chance? A6: Based on the cited peer-reviewed scientific research, it is thought that once a self-replicating gene emerged as a product of natural chemical processes, life started and gradual evolution of complexity was made possible – in contrast to the sudden appearance of complexity that creationists claim to have been necessary at the beginning of life. Life did not happen just because there were huge intervals of time, but because a planet has a certain range of environments where pre-biotic chemistry took place. The actual nature of the first organisms and the exact pathways to the origin of life may be forever lost to science, but scientific research can at least help us understand what is possible. Past discussions For further information, see the numerous past discussions on these topics in the archives of Talk:Abiogenesis: The article is not neutral. It doesn't mention that abiogenesis is controversial. Definition (2002) Definition (2013) The article's first sentence is perhaps incorrect Lead sentence does not meet the standards of Wikipedia core content policies The article should mention alternative views prominently, such as in a criticism section. Talk:Abiogenesis/Archive 1#ADD TITLE Abiogenesis is just a theory, not a fact. Statement on current state of theory - misleading Abiogenesis is a scientific theory There is scientific evidence against abiogenesis. Talk:Abiogenesis/Archive 1#ADD TITLE References ^ See List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design. ^ As reported in Newsweek magazine, 29 June 1987, Page 23: "By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. Earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science..." See also Public beliefs about evolution and creation, Robinson, B. A. 1995. for a discussion on acceptance of evolution.

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Text and/or other creative content from Origin of life was copied or moved into Abiogenesis. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

On 1 July 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved to Origin of life. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

This article was 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): Bmcarruthers, Tvonich, Andreanodal (article contribs). Peer reviewers: LaLevy.

— Assignment last updated by LaLevy (talk) 20:26, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Adding the synonym at the beginning is appropriate. Biopoesis or biopoiesis (the first is the original and Oxford English Dictionary spelling) is currently used in some scientific literature and has vanished. I note, as researcher who has published on the origin of life, that no researchers used either "abiogenesis" or "biopoesis" at all in a recent, Sept 2025 conference on the origin of life in Chicago. Instead, everyone used the phrase "origin of life" . But biopoesis/biopoiesis still crops up in the current scientific literature: I count its occurrence in 7 papers in 2024 on prebiotic chemistry, although "abiogenesis" is far more common. DCCProf (talk) 23:28, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not vanished, I mean DCCProf (talk) 23:29, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but it's way too rare to justify it's presence in the lead. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:33, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. The term is not rare in the scientific literature on 'origin of life' as a whole. It was the preferred term of some researchers in the past, so fairly common in some 20th century scientific literature. If frequency of use were the all-important metric, the whole page should be renamed "origin of life". Use of "abiogenesis" has been declining and was most frequent in the late 19th century according the OED frequency data, with fourfold decline from 0.04 per million words then to 0.01 per million words today. In contrast, "origin of life" is 10-30 times more frequently used according to the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), similar in frequency to "big bang". DCCProf (talk) 19:04, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. As you say, the term is not the one in common use. Personally I think we should call the article "Origin of life"; since we've not been able to do that, we've been stuck with "abiogenesis" which at least was once a major term. It's a curious one as any linguist would have titled it "biogenesis", but there we are. WP:COMMONNAME should mean that moving to "Origin of life" would be a shoo-in ... among scientists and rational thinkers. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:14, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comment. I agree that an obviously better name for this article would be "Origin of life" to align with WIkipedia's desire for general understandability. I suspect most people in the street would struggle (or respond, "What?") if you asked them about "abiogenesis". But everyone understands "origin of life". DCCProf (talk) 20:23, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. It should be moved. Chiswick Chap (talk) 03:33, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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^[1] and fatty acids.^[2](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)[reply]