Soooo... In 1861, Louis Pasteur performed a series of experiments which demonstrated that organisms such as bacteria and fungi do not spontaneously appear in STERILE, NUTRIENT RICH media.
Ergo, the theory of biogenesis had accumulated so much evidential support, due to the work of Louis Pasteur and others, that the alternative theory of spontaneous generation had been effectively disproven... or has it?
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Darwin himself suggested that the original spark of life may have begun in a "warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, so that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes."
He went on to explain that "at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed."
In other words, the presence of life itself makes the search for the origin of life dependent on the sterile conditions of the laboratory.
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What are the implications with Pasteur's findings, Darwin's findings, and abiogenesis!?
Ergo, the theory of biogenesis had accumulated so much evidential support, due to the work of Louis Pasteur and others, that the alternative theory of spontaneous generation had been effectively disproven... or has it?
______________
Darwin himself suggested that the original spark of life may have begun in a "warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, so that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes."
He went on to explain that "at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed."
In other words, the presence of life itself makes the search for the origin of life dependent on the sterile conditions of the laboratory.
______________
What are the implications with Pasteur's findings, Darwin's findings, and abiogenesis!?
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What Pasteur and Darwin wrote about were two COMPLETELY different things.
Pasteur disproved the idea of spontaneous generation of *FULLY FORMED MODERN ORGANISMS* from non-living material. It was a refutation of a form of "constant creation" that was a belief from the time of Aristotle ... that flies could spring from rotting meat (instead of from fly eggs), or that rats could spring from dirty rags, or even that microorganisms could spring from sterilized meat broth, without any contamination from other microorganisms.
But what Pasteur did NOT claim to disprove (as there was no way he could disprove it), was the idea of *PRIMITIVE* pre-cellular life emerging over MILLIONS OF YEARS, in waters as huge as the oceans, and conditions as varied as those between swamps, to oceans, to volcanic sea vents.
Pasteur disproved the idea of spontaneous generation of *FULLY FORMED MODERN ORGANISMS* from non-living material. It was a refutation of a form of "constant creation" that was a belief from the time of Aristotle ... that flies could spring from rotting meat (instead of from fly eggs), or that rats could spring from dirty rags, or even that microorganisms could spring from sterilized meat broth, without any contamination from other microorganisms.
But what Pasteur did NOT claim to disprove (as there was no way he could disprove it), was the idea of *PRIMITIVE* pre-cellular life emerging over MILLIONS OF YEARS, in waters as huge as the oceans, and conditions as varied as those between swamps, to oceans, to volcanic sea vents.
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