Talk:Pasteur proved life only comes from life (law of biogenesis)

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Regardless, abiogenesis is speculative without any evidence. Scientifically, it would not even be considered a theory, at best a hypothesis, more then likely a conjecture. Wikipedia seems to suggest that speculation and conjecture are synonyms in this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory in the characteristics section. PhoteK 06:09, 28 Jun 2005 (BST)

See Abiogenesis is speculative, without evidence. --tk (t) 08:26, 29 Jun 2005 (BST)

Misplaced criticism

"Actually in order for a law to become a law it most have universal appeal, that is to say that it must apply to all cases. Since the Law of Biogenesis is in fact a law, it does pertain to all life, even the first life. The only way to prove abiogenesis is to actually create life from non-living matter. What's more, that won't exactly disprove it because it would take a great deal of intelligence to form this cell from nonliving material, perhaps suggesting the intelligence needed to do such a thing in the first place."

I removed this. Reason: it's nonsense.

1. "in order for a law to become a law it most have universal appeal"
2. "the Law of Biogenesis is in fact a law"

These two claims are contradictory. Pasteur's results can't be generalized because he only tried "making" life from non-life under today's conditions, to disprove one special idea that was common at his time - namely that mice and other "vermin" were generated from non-living matter. So Pasteur's findings don't have universal appeal. Depending on what a law is, either the first or second claim is false. You can't fool us with such simple logic tricks (Begging the Question, in this case). --tk (t) 15:01, 30 Jan 2006 (GMT)

Review of Responses

I moved these two responses here for now, because I don't think they constitute sound reasoning. Sorry Fang, but after reading what I have to say if you still think they are good points, you can move them back.

• This argument would apply just as much to creationism because creationism believes in abiogenesis in the way that creationists believe God created life out of nothing.

I think it would be far to say that most Creationist attribute their deity with the ability to overrule physical laws. So this doesn't really apply to the arguments of creationists.

• This argument would have no effect on Evolution because whether life formed or not formed through abiogenesis, evolution still occurred through a series of positive mutations.

Yes, it doesn't affect evolution, but I think that it would be too restrictive not to address this issue. After all, in order to show that no God is needed through the entire history of the Earth, as most evolutionists believe, a theory of abiogenesis is needed. --Doddy 06:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)