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I welcome your most cordial accusation of hypocrisy. :\

I was not accusing you of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy would imply some sort of moral failing. When I say that you (perhaps I should have said, "evolutionists") can't have it both ways, I meant that evolutionists want to say that abiogenisis is not part of evolutionary theory, but in many classrooms and textbooks a naturalistic origin of life is tacitly and sometimes overtly presented as part of the theory. To a philosophical naturalist, a naturalistic accounting of the origin of life is a logical necessity. This intellectual bias is made evident by the response of evolutionists such as those at TalkOrigins any time the possibility of abiogenesis is questioned, examples of which I gave. Why else would they defend a notion that has nothing to do with evolution? It is not named TalkOrigins for nothing.

Look at the very first paragraph of Spontaneous Generation and the Origin of Life

What Louis Pasteur and the others who denied spontaneous generation demonstrated is that life does not currently spontaneously arise in complex form from nonlife in nature; he did not demonstrate the impossibility of life arising in simple form from nonlife by way of a long and propitious series of chemical steps/selections. In particular, they did not show that life cannot arise once, and then evolve. Neither Pasteur, nor any other post-Darwin researcher in this field, denied the age of the earth or the fact of evolution.

What is "arising" "in simple form" "from nonlife" "by way of a long and propitious series of chemical steps/selections" if not an evolutionary process with an evolutionary mechanism? When an evolutionist uses the word "selection" there is no doubt what he is talking about.

Consider the just the titles in the bibliography:

Abkevich, V. I., A. M. Gutin, and E. I. Shakhnovich. 1996. How the first biopolymers could have evolved. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America93 (2):83944.
---. 1997. Computer simulations of prebiotic evolution. Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing.
Alberti, S. 1997. The origin of the genetic code and protein synthesis. Journal of Molecular Evolution 45 (4):3528.
Bada, J. L. 1995. Origins of homochirality. Nature 374 (6523):5945.
Baltscheffsky, H., C. Blomberg, H. Liljenstrom, B. I. Lindahl, and P. Arhem. 1997. On the origin and evolution of life: an introduction. Journal of Theoretical Biology 187 (4):4539.
Bernal, John Desmond. 1967. The origin of life. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Bohler, C., P. E. Nielsen, and L. E. Orgel. 1995. Template switching between PNA and RNA oligonucleotides. Nature 376 (6541):57881.
Caron, F. 1986. Deviations from the 'universal' genetic code. Microbiological Sciences 3 (2):36-40.
Conrad, M. 1997. Origin of life and the underlying physics of the universe. Biosystems 42 (2-3):17790.
De Duve, Christian. 1995. Vital dust: life as a cosmic imperative. New York: Basic Books.
de Graaf, R. M., J. Visscher, and A. W. Schwartz. 1995. A plausibly prebiotic synthesis of phosphonic acids. Nature 378 (6556):4747.
Di Giulio, M. 1997. The origin of the genetic code. Trends in Biochemical Sciences 22 (2):4950.
Ding, P. Z., K. Kawamura, and J. P. Ferris. 1996. Oligomerization of uridine phosphorimidazolides on montmorillonite: a model for the prebiotic synthesis of RNA on minerals. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 26 (2):15171.
Eigen, Manfred. 1993. The origin of genetic information: viruses as models. Gene 135 (1-2):3747.
Ertem, G., and J. P. Ferris. 1996. Synthes is of RNA oligomers on heterogeneous templates. Nature 379 (6562):23840.
Eschenmöser, A. 1999. Chemical etiology of nucleic acid structure. Science 284 (5423):2118-2124.
Ferris, J. P., A. R. Hill, Jr., R. Liu, and L. E. Orgel. 1996. Synthesis of long prebiotic oligomers on mineral surfaces. Nature 381 (6577):5961.
Florkin, Marcel, ed. 1960. Aspects of the origin of life. Oxford, New York, Pergamon Press.
Fox, Sidney W. 1972. Molecular evolution and the origin of life. San Francisco: Freeman.
---. 1988. The emergence of life: Darwinian evolution from the inside. New York: Basic Books.
Hartman, H. 1995. Speculations on the origin of the genetic code. Journal of Molecular Evolution 40 (5):5414.
Hill, A. R Jr., C. Bohler, and L. E. Orgel. 1998. Polymerization on the rocks: negatively-charged alpha-amino acids. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 28 (3):23543.
Horgan, J. 1996. The world according to RNA. Experiments lend support to the leading theory of life's origin. Scientific American 274 (1):2730.
Huber, C. and G. Wächtershäuser. 1997. Activated acetic acid by carbon fixation on (Fe,Ni)S under primordial conditions. Comment in: Science 1997 Apr 11;276(5310):222. Science 276 (5310):2457.
Huber, C. , and G. Wächtershäuser. 1998. Peptides by activation of amino acids with CO on (Ni,Fe)S surfaces: implications for the origin of life. Science 281 (5377):6702.
James, K. D., and A. D. Ellington. 1997. Surprising fidelity of template-directed chemical ligation of oligonucleotides. Chemistry and Biology 4 (8):595605.
Keefe, A. D., S. L. Miller, G. McDonald, and J. Bada. 1995. Investigation of the prebiotic synthesis of amino acids and RNA bases from CO2 using FeS/H2S as a reducing agent. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 92 (25):119046.
Keosian, John. 1964. The origin of life. New York: Reinhold Pub. Corp.
Lahav, Noam. 1999. Biogenesis: theories of life's origin. New York: Oxford University Press.
Levy, M., and S. L. Miller. 1998. The stability of the RNA bases: implications for the origin of life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 95 (14):79338.
Lifson, S. 1997. On the crucial stages in the origin of animate matter. Journal of Molecular Evolution 44 (1):18.
Matsuno, K. 1997. Molecular semantics and the origin of life. Biosystems 42 (2-3):12939.
Maynard Smith, John, and Eörs Szathmáry. 1998. The origins of life: from the birth of life to the origins of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller, S. L., J. W. Schopf, and A. Lazcano. 1997. Oparin' s "Origin of Life": sixty years later. Journal of Molecular Evolution 44 (4):3513.
Mosqueira, F. G. 1988. On the origin of life event. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 18 (1-2):14356.
Muller, A. W. 1996. Hypothesis: the thermosynthesis model for the origin of life and the emergence of regulation by Ca²⁺. Essays in Biochemistry 31:10319.
Orgel, L. E. 1973. The origins of life: molecules and natural selection. London: Chapman and Hall.
Piccirilli, J. A. 1995. Origin of life. RNA seeks its maker. Nature 376 (6541):5489.
Rosen, Robert. 1991. Life itself: a comprehensive inquiry into the nature, origin, and fabrication of life. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ruse, M. 1997. The origin of life: philosophical perspectives. Journal of Theoretical Biology 187 (4):47382.
Scheuring, István, Tamás Czárán, Péter Szabó, György Károlyi, and Zoltán Toroczkai. 2002. Spatial models of prebiotic evolution: soup before pizza? Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 33:319-355.
Schopf, J. William. 1983. Earth's earliest biosphere : its origin and evolution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Szathmáry, E. 1992. Viral sex, levels of selection, and the origin of life. Journal of Theoretical Biology 159 (1):99109.
---. 1997. Origins of life. The first two billion years. Nature 387 (6634):6623.
Szathmáry, E., and L. Demeter. 1987. Group selection of early replicators and the origin of life. Journal of Theoretical Biology 128 (4):46386.
Tiedemann, H. 1997. "Killer" impacts and life's origins. Science 277 (5332):16878.
Wächtershäuser, G. 1997. The origin of life and its methodological challenge. Journal of Theoretical Biology 187 (4):48394.

It is intellectually incoherent to talk about "prebiotic evolution" or to ask how the first biopolymers could have evolved and then say that evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. That's what I meant by trying to have it both ways.

Cordially,

I was not accusing you of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy would imply some sort of moral failing.

I wouldn't be for the first time. If you believe I'm saying one thing and doing another don't see how that is anything other than an accusation of hypocrisy.

It is intellectually incoherent to talk about "prebiotic evolution" or to ask how the first biopolymers could have evolved and then say that evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life.

I have to go back to the definition of evolution. The modern synthesis theory is comprised of Darwin's theory of natural selection, Mendel's theory of inheritance, and theories of molecular biology that have come about since the description of the DNA molecule by Watson, Crick, and others. The word evolution in this context is defined as the rate of change in patterns of genes that occur in populations of organisms over time. As with the usage of the word "theory" and the idea that mankind "evolved from monkeys," there is a disconnect between the common usage of the term and the technical definition. That's why when I mean the theory of evolution I often go to the trouble to type out theory of evolution or the modern synthesis theory of evolution. The connotation of "evolution" means change over time, and the denotation of the theory of evolution means the change over time of patterns of genes in populations of organisms. To further confuse things, many non-living systems are also said to evolve.

Investigating a naturalistic origin for life as we know it is not the same thing as the study of how life forms change over time. It no doubt a related question in the minds of many biologists. It is an offshoot of the study of biology and is related to both molecular biology and inorganic chemisty as well as the study of astronomy and the early solar system. It is an interesting field, and one that is worthy of attention. However, I am standing fast here because hypotheses of the origin of life and the theory of evolution are two different things. Evolutionary theory does not depend on hypothesis of naturalist origins in order to make predictions.

Because the Talk.Origins archive devotes a section to abiogenesis, and because biology textbooks make reference to Miller's experiments do not make hypotheses of origins part of evolutionary theory. Nor is the name of a Usenet newsgroup evidence that abiogenesis is really part of Darwin's theory. Without going into some boring Internet history, the "talk" heirarchy is the place where unmoderated, or lightly moderated discussions on controversial topics occured. The other top level groups, such as sci and soc were more more strictly moderated, and were considered places for more scholarly discussion. Talk.origins was a newsgroup where both evolutionists and creationists could have the very same discussion we are having now. Eerily the same, sometimes, as anyone who has read talk.origins will attest. However, the name of chat channel and a website does not mean that hypotheses of the origin of life are necessarily part of evolutionary theory.

To a philosophical naturalist, a naturalistic accounting of the origin of life is a logical necessity. This intellectual bias...

This is another way of saying that to an atheist, an atheistic genesis is necessary. Thus the bias towards atheism people accuse of evolutionists and evolutionary theory. To this I say science only deals with the natural. The supernatural lies outside the realm of scientific investigation. It is not that there is a bias toward atheism. It is simply that naturalism is the limit. Science is a tool for describing the physical world in concrete terms. However, to include the supernatural would mean it is no long science but, at best metaphysics, and at worst pseudo-science like ghostbusting. However, it is wrong to suggest that all scientists are without faith and are necessarily atheistic. Science is neutral on the question of faith and rightfully so. Scientists of different faiths may work on questions of biological evolution. This neutrality is frequently condemned as atheism, yet it is a vital part of scientific investigation. It is not that science is biased towards atheism, only the limit of scientific inquiry is bounded by the physical world.