Talk:Abiogenesis

I made a minor edit to make a difference between spontaneous generation and modern abiogenesis. They are not the same thing. I think a separate article about spontaneous generation should be created and explain how it was proven wrong with biogenesis. But I'm not enough comfortable in history of science to do it.

   Sorry, I just saw that this entry already exist. I'm just going to make a link.

God doesn't count as "Alive"? That doesn't sound right... --Fullmetajacket 16:58, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

"Sound right" or not, I would argue that God, as a purely spiritual being, is not "alive" in the biological, scientific sense -- that is, he doesn't have a physical flesh-and-bone body, made of cells, DNA, and such (Mormons' God notwithstanding). Therefore, even within evolutionary theory, it can be argued that the original "spark" of life was initiated by God, but that would still fit the definition of abiogenesis. As to whether God is living (in a non-biological, supernatural sense) is another discussion entirely... <carefully avoiding turning this into a rant /> Pharos 15:54, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

NPOV

I'm editing for NPOV,we need to include some non-Christian religions takes on creation

Citation needed

Can someone add a citation for the claim it is now discredited, or I shall removed it. Richardm (talk) 16:57, 24 September 2016 (EDT)

Sorry, but that is in a quotation, and the cited article really does say that. There's no law against the internet having wrong or stupid things.

The article does sort of have a point. Abiogenesis used to be taken to mean things like maggots spontaneously arising from rotting meat. People, in their zeal to grasp at anything that could touch on the question of where living things come from, used to believe stuff like that. It was the experiments of Louis Pasteur, among others, that caused that theory to be "discredited". In the current era, abiogenesis accepts evolution and all the things that are known about life at present, and tries to deal with the more cosmic question of how it really began. Either there were living things through infinite time in the past, or there must have been some kind of abiogenesis. It's very unlikely that there were living things lurking in the primordial quark-gluon plasma of the big bang.

Alas, this gives creationists an opportunity to take advantage of the potential confusion about the meaning of abiogenesis, and imply that discrediting of the 19^th century version of the theory must mean that modern cosmology could not have happened.

I think the best we can do is point out that the dictionary.com definition is referring to a somewhat outdated definition from the 19^th century.

It's a never-ending battle, isn't it? SamHB (talk) 20:41, 24 September 2016 (EDT)