Evolution and the Origin of Life

Contrary to the claims made by some defenders of evolution, the question of the origins of life is certainly within the domain of evolutionary studies. With a round up of what we know, see Nick Matzke's article at Panda's Thumb.

Says Nick:

"My take: It is high time all of these statements be discarded or highly modified. They are basically lazy, all-too-easy responses relying on hair-splitting technicalities or nearly philosophical assertions of the “even if the creationists were empirically correct on this point, which they aren’t but I’m too busy to back it up right now, it wouldn’t matter” variety. And the worst part is that these sorts of statements mis-describe the actual state of the science among the people who work in the field. It is simply not true that we, the scientific community, know almost nothing about the OOL (what an individual who spent a career working on fossils or fruit flies or speciation might know personally is a different question)."