Creationists often conflate Abiogenesis and Evolution, but how life began is really unimportant to the study of how changes occur after the process starts.

But first, we must determine just what we mean by "life". What are the minimum requirements for something to be considered alive. Are viruses and prions "alive"? They cannot independently reproduce, they do not resperate, eat, eliminate or use energy, yet we cannot deny that they are biological organisms, very sophisticated ones, in some cases.

So what would be the simplest structure that could be called life???

Several labs have synthesized molecules that are able to produce copies of themselves from smaller molecules in their specialized environments. Dr M Reza Ghadiri leads one such lab group, his criteria for life are...

1. It is self-replicating.

2. It is self-sustaining.

3. It is capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution.

Only in the widest sense would Viruses and prions be included in this definition, they require a host's machinery to reproduce and sustain themselves. The lab "grown" molecules do not yet fit, requiring specialized environments to reproduce and sustain themselves.

But do these molecules point the way to a period of "chemical evolution" that led up to the first life. Is it arbitrary of us to draw a line on such a process and say on this side is non-life, on the other, life???

Creationists make much of the complexity of even the simplest proteins. But in an environment where more complex and successful proteins do not compete, could not simpler, slower and more fragile compounds not survive???

There are many more points to be made, others probably will make them better than I. We are not discussing evolution here, but possible natural sources for the beginnings of the life that then evolved.

Building blocks(amino acids) have been detected in interstellar dust. Meteorites contain even more complex prebiotic compounds, Black Smokers provide rich, energy filled environments safe from ultraviolet light and Mother Ocean's influence can be seen as cells are simply sacs of polluted water.

Your input welcome.

Grumpy

I don't think Creationists truly understand the implications of the need to make such definitions.
And I think very very few Evolutionists understand it either.

The artifical creation of urea was one of the top 100 hundred accomplishments of science because of what it meant.

But if a virus is not alive, how did they become as they are? Were the "ancestors" of virii living organisms (by the definition Grumpy posted) that thrived as parasites and eventually lost any ability to reproduce of their own accord. Or was the original proto-virus just a chance mutation in a host's DNA?