Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue <ian.musgrave_ins...@adelaide.edu.au> wrote in
message news:e6U7PGH5OI5gKpBsS+VpaEzUoh8H@4ax.com...

Gentle readers, Ian's reply here is perhaps an example of a cite-screen.
Ian knows his subject, and I appreciate and try to follow up links and refs
where possible, though I don't have convenient access to uni library.
However on this occassion I'll trump these with a t.o page on this subject.
This author at least acknowledges that abio is still closer to the
speculation rather than solution end of the scale:

"The problem of perception: Stanley Miller did such awe-inspiring
experiments that we are stuck in a particular abiogenetic paradigm: life
must have come from amino acids synthesized in the atmosphere and dissolved
in a giant pond. This is still roughly the public's perception. However, the
community has moved beyond this, albeit slowly. While my meanderings are not
the only possible description, I hope that they provide a coherent pathway
for those who have not previously considered the challenge in detail.
Obviously, there are still great problems: the synthesis of nucleosides, the
breakdown of oligomers (not considered here), the synthesis of pyrimidines
(not considered, and to some extent not necessary: purines can
self-replicate via non-Watson-Crick base pairs). However, other stumbling
blocks (the synthesis of ribose, the selection from random strings) have
begun to fall."

"Perhaps this more or less even-handed treatment of abiogenesis will give
comfort to creationists or to those who see intelligent design, but I warn
them: to trumpet the barrier today is to eat your words when it falls
tomorrow. If you make a proof of Jesus (or Buddha or any supernaturalism) on
the back of abiogenesis, be prepared for the disproof as well. Such a
disproof is unfair, and not necessarily logically linked, but it will be so
perceived."
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-abiogenesis.html

More bluntly:

"...Evolutionists are convinced that abiogenesis happened, but science has
been frustrated it its attempt to account for this process. This statement
from Harold P. Klien, who was the chairman of a National Academy of Sciences
committee reviewing origins of life research, captures the frustration, "The
simplest bacterium is so damn complicated from the point of view of a
chemist that it is almost impossible to imagine how it [abiogenesis]
happened. Even if scientists do create something with lifelike properties in
the laboratory, they must still wonder: Is that how it happened in the first
place? " (120, 125). Further research and discovery in this area has only
served to complicate things. As the sciences of biochemistry and genetics
develop, the problem of abiogenesis has become that much more intractable.
In July of 1999 the international conference of origin-of-life scientists
met in San Diego, CA. The mood observed by two of the participants was
described as "Grim, full of frustration, pessimism, and desperation" (Fazale
and Ross). One of the foremost experts in this area is the highly respected
biochemist Klause Dose, who summed up the situation this way:

'More than thirty years of experimentation on the origin of life in the
fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception
of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than
to its solution. At present all discussions on principle theories and
experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of
ignorance.' [Dose, Klaus. "The Origin of Life: More Questions than Answers."
Interdisciplinary Science Review 13 1998]"
http://campus.murraystate.edu/staff/scott.thile/Christian/Design.html

rgds,
Mark