Don't Confuse Concepts

By David Harding

This letter was featured on the Readers' Page of the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper, March 23, 2005.

To the Editor:

In an otherwise fine article ("Evolution or creationism: CNY schools tread lightly"), the paper repeats a common misconception regarding biological evolution, in that it deals with "the concept of life's origin." This could not be further from the truth.

The scientific study of how life might have arisen for the first time on the primordial Earth, or, more simply, how non-living matter became alive in the distant past is called abiogenesis. It is a completely separate field from biological evolution, which deals only with how living organisms, fit enough to survive in their environment and successfully reproduce, pass on their genes to successive generations.

Unlike biological evolution, abiogenesis is a very speculative field among scientists, who have not come to a consensus as to what the most likely mechanism for life's initial formation on Earth was.

David R. Harding
Fayetteville

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