randman

"Today, most scientists believe that spontaneous generation took place at least once - when certain chemicals came together to form the first simple living organisms more than three billion years ago."

Jerry A. Coyne, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, taken from the 1994 edition of the WorldBook Encyclopedia under the section "Spontaeous generation."

lpetrich

So freaking what?

What did you expect that guy to say, O Randman? That the first Earth organisms were seeded by time travelers from our future?

Duvenoy

Originally posted by randman:
"Today, most scientists believe that spontaneous generation took place at least once - when certain chemicals came together to form the first simple living organisms more than three billion years ago." (source of quote omitted for brevity)


And your point is......?

I read an article some years ago that abiogenisis might still be happening today. While I find that unlikely, I can't toss the possibility. The more I read about thermal vents on the ocean floor and the amazing creatures that live aroubd them, the more I wonder.

doov

Vorkosigan

No doubt it is. But imagine those poor newbies trying to compete with the existing bacteria and other nasties that have 3 billion years of success behind them...I doubt they last very long.

Vorkosigan

Duvenoy

Exactly. Their survival rate would be 0. A great many of the vent animals feed on bactera.

There's also hot springs to consider. Some, if not all, contain algas that thrive in near boiling water.

Wouldn't it be fascinating to find abiogenesis happening in the field rather than to merely create it in the lab?

And what if some of these organisms are surviving?

doov

KnightWhoSaysNi

Randman,

Be careful not to build a strawman version of abiogenesis. I think it was likely a complex step-by-step process rather than some complex organism spontaneously forming out of simple chemicals:



From <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html</a>

[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: Nightshade ]</p>

GunnerJ

Error one: the passage cited refers to abiogenesis theory, not evolution, so it is not, nessesarily, the "belief" of "evolutionists."

Error two: Equivocation. randman is obviously trying to show that "evolutionists" "believe" in a theory positing that living creatures, like flies, are produced from decaying biomass, like rotting meat. However, the quote uses "spontaneous generation" only in the most literal sense of the words, and is not a reference to the above mentioned Medieval theory. Trying to use the former meaning in the later quote is mere equivocation made possible by more out-of-context quotation.

Sauron

randboy's trying the same thing over on xtianforums.

He's getting his butt kicked over there as well.

Sauron

A prize for you. That is *exactly* what randman is trying to do. Even though he's been told several times that abiogenesis != spontaneous generation.

He has admitted to using his own definitions here, and his one scientific reference is this out-of-context quote from Coyne.

When challenged to bring the entire quote from Coyne, randman has never done so. For good reason, obviously.

randman

"He has admitted to using his own definitions here, and his one scientific reference is this out-of-context quote from Coyne.

When challenged to bring the entire quote from Coyne, randman has never done so. For good reason, obviously."

Both are false accusations, and I am not surprised. Evolutionists appear to need to rely on false accusations and lies, which doesn't apeak highly of them having real data to back up their claims.

Tell me something btw. Just how is Coyne's quote out of context?