Do We Have Empirical Demonstration/Confirmation of Abiogenesis? NO

You can make creative stories, for the murder, and where the evidence leads you may find the killer, and even possibly get a confession from them. There are times people profess but they didn't do it either, all of the evidence must line up with our conclusions. So going back to the link about evidence anything is possible, but it is probable?

The "creative stories" are not the truth, they are explanations of what we see in the here and now, and people have taken them to be much more than they should be. I don't make much of the fossils outside of the fact they show us creatures that are no longer here, that we can agree on with respect to many of them.

We get movies like "Jurassic Park" or some exhibits at a museum where an artist takes what someone says about a particular fossil and comes up with a representation of what they thought the fossil looks like, then all the kids walk through the museum and think they know because they saw the exhibit, the only thing they saw was what someone thinks about it.

At some "fossil find" for all we know unless the fossil is intact there could be the fossilized bones of more than one creature and someone combines them into one unique fossilized creature and gets fame for the discovery, who could prove them wrong?

I also see the challenge as showing that it's possible for life to emerge (if at all) by some naturalistic process, rather than the precise way in which it actually happened. But let's keep discussion of how the Universe came into existence for another time and place?

You're correct in this case to say the actual process cannot be ascertained with certainty at this distance in time.

That it is possible to falsify or not?

As for the rest, busy on a few things at present so I'll look over your other points later but we do seem to be going over old ground again and again?

Let me ask you this, do you think our starting point in how we view the universe and life will come into play in how we view the evidence? Then should it?

"do you think our starting point in how we view the universe and life will come into play in how we view the evidence?"

Isn't that back to front? The evidence alone, such as it is, should guide how we view the universe and life. As someone who trusts in scientific methodology I refrain from forming an opinion about any physical aspect of the Universe until I've understood the available evidence.

You may approach these issues with a certain (religious) bias or perspective, I avoid any such preconceived ideas.

Like I said, take some geology and paleontology classes, because you don't know what you're talking about.

You're thinking of 'old school' paleontology. You also seem to be thinking of reconstructions for crypto species and/or incomplete (vertebrate) skeletons. I assume you know that is <1% of the fossil record. I assume you know that most of the fossil record consists of marine invertebrates (not vertebrates) that are complete (whole) fossils.

Modern paleontology is a very sophisticated science, and in many ways more advanced than modern forensic science (we collect a lot more data and have substantially more laboratory analyses available to us). You seem to think that all paleontologists do is dig up 'old bones.' Not even close. (And, in fact, for me personally, I often find the 'ground'--i.e., sedimentology--more fascinating than the fossils themselves). You seem to be thinking of the fossils in isolation to the 'ground' in which they're found. But that's not how paleontology works. We don't just look at the fossils. We look at everything. Modern paleontology includes:

-The fossils themselves. Quantitative mineralogical analysis to tell us the precise chemical composition. This can include microscopy and thin sections).

-Taphonomy: analysis of the 'death and burial' context, which includes documenting things like fossil orientation, fossil abrading or lack thereof, whether it's articulated or disarticulated. (Similar to modern forensics, such things give us data about the conditions and environment of death and burial).

-Sedimentology: a huge part of paleontology is analysis of the sedimentological context in which the fossils are found: the lithology, mineralogy, petrology, sedimentary structures.

-Stratigraphy/Biostratigraphy: mapping the vertical and lateral (geographic) extent of a paleospecies. Vertical and lateral facies changes.

***And the YEC straw man accusation of "old age/evolutionary uniformitarian assumptions" is so 200 years ago. Modern geologists don't assume layers are put down at slow, uniform rates. Today we use highly sophisticated techniques to determine stratigraphic completeness and in paleontology control for sampling bias and preservation bias and more. Modern geologists recognize evidence of both slow and rapid catastrophic deposition as well as when there is evidence of no deposition. This isn't done haphazardly or by creative storytelling or guessing, or "old age" assumptions, but all based on the actual observational evidence at physical field localities.

-Paleoecology: analysis of all of the above and associations of fossils with other types of fossils.

-There are actually only a few places (although it's growing) that issue paleontology degrees, per se. Most paleontologists are geologists who don't simply look at fossils but collect data from the entire 'crime scene' so to speak. There is sooooo much data to collect (more than can be collected in a lifetime).

*So again, you seem to be thinking of fossils in isolation ripped out of context, when that's not how it works. Modern paleontology collects data on *everything* and is not myopically focused on digging up 'old bones' but on putting together an understanding of the entire 'crime scene' environment that starts with the mineralogical composition of the rocks themselves, which provides an enormous amount of data just right there when we're barely out of the gate.

@stephen_33 the "old ground" we keep going "over and over again" seems more like evasion and avoidance over and over again, which I guess is your "answer"

Okay give me something you think I am demonstrably wrong about that you can show everyone here I am wrong!

Have already done that. But instead of doing more of that, scroll up and see the additions to my post where I explain in more detail what's involved in modern paleontology...

   This is more along the lines of how we determine how old fossils are .....

@kjvav classic Monty Python. I assume you're just being humorous (otherwise that's ignorant) (and the irony, of course, being that this is more of a slam on superstition and religion than science; YECs really do a disservice to themselves by pitting science against religion)

I wonder if anyone actually knows how paleontologists determine the age of fossils. I bet no one actually does.

Nothing is funny unless it's partly true.

They determine the age of the fossil by the level of dirt it was found in and how old the dirt level is by the type of fossils found in it.

Nope. That's not how paleontologists determine the age of fossils (But it's a great 50 yr plus lie that YECs--who are supposed to be honest and ethical---continue to throw around, to their great shame)

Well, I can and do agree with a ton of things said about that subject, what exactly am I wrong about?

"We can only say there's a fossil in the ground"--for starters

On a side note you also keep assuming that I'm assuming long ages when what I've talked about is independent of the age "date" of the fossils.

But I would start here....

You need to listen to YEC flood geologist Ken Coulson's video talks. Especially, part 2 where he walks you through his research on stromatolite fossils and the types of questions we can answer just from those fossils.

You continually deny that you assume long ages, and yet you never seem to tell us what age you do believe.

If you are going to talk about the fossils being in the ground, we agree, if you talk about the different shapes meaning they belong to different creatures we agree. As soon as you talk about something other than the fossils as dates, you are no longer talking about fossils but something else. I owe you two videos I said I would watch, I'll comment on them after I listen.

1. The scientific evidence supports old ages 

2. The Bible supports young ages

3. The most honest approach is to acknowledge #1 & #2 conflict (instead of twisting the Bible to fit science--like OECs---or twisting science to fit the Bible--like YECs)

4. Everything I've been describing about patterns in the fossil record are factual, physical observations that are independent of the age 'date' of fossils (physical observations like vertical stacks of reefs throughout the fossil record and the vertical stacks of stromatolites that YEC flood geologist Ken Coulson talks about in part 2 of his video series---such observations are still factually true regardless of whether the earth is young or old, and involve no assumptions about the age 'date' of fossils)

***By the way, on a side note did you figure out how paleontologists actually determine the age of fossils? It's a guarded secret, but I'll reveal it to you. So here it is. The unvarnished truth. The answer to the question how do paleontologists determine the age 'date' of fossils is.... (drumroll).... we don't!

That's the job of a geochronologist, which is a completely separate field of study from paleontology (plus, you can't date fossils, you radiometric date igneous rocks and tuffs (volcanic ash layers), and detrital zircons, etc.; which is different from paleontology). The YEC allegation that 'old ages' are assumptions based on an assumed 'old age evolutionary time scale' is simply untrue. It's a myth. In fact, scientific evidence for an old earth was already being discovered *before* Darwin's theory of evolution (before Darwin was even born).