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Author Topic:   Evolution & Abiogenesis were originally one subject.
Peg
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Message 1 of 2 (567916)
07-03-2010 8:46 AM


In the 'I need an answer' thread I made the point to the OP that the reason why creationists are opposed to the theory of evolution is because they cannot separate 'abiogenesis from evolution' because when the ToE was introduced, abiogenesis was very much a part of the theory. Some have commented that I am wrong on that point and abiogenesis was NEVER a part of the theory of evolution. I would say that it was most certainly taken for granted as being the cataclyst to evolution and there is evidence in the writings of Darwin and others which proves this to be the case.
In Origin of the Species Darwin rejected the idea of 'special creation' outright. In chpt 14 on Page 487 he wrote:
"As species are produced and exterminated by slowly acting and still existing causes, and not by miraculous acts of creation and by catastrophes;
He reasoned that if animals were in fact the result of special creation, then there is no reason why there should be more varieties within a single species, as if a species should not change if it were specially created. Chpt 2 page 55 under subject 'Species of large genera variable' he wrote:
On the other hand, if we look at each species as a special act of creation, there is no apparent reason why more varieties should occur in a group having many species, than in one having few.
He also held the view that all the life that existed descended from 'one primordial form' as opposed to many created forms for he wrote in his conclusion on Page 484
" Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed."
While its true he didnt specifically mention abiogenesis in 'origin of the species' he did consider it to be a very real possibility for the origin of life as is seen by various letters he sent to other evolutionists.
Pubmed Central writes:
Darwin read critically Bastian’s 1872 book The Beginnings of Life. Although he was not convinced in full, he did accept the possibility of a natural origin of life from non-living matter, and wrote to Wallace [Letter 8488] (Strick 2000),
My Dear Wallace,I have at last finished the gigantic job of reading Dr. Bastian’s book and have been deeply interested by it. ...The result is that I am bewildered and astonished by his statements, but am not convinced, though, on the whole, it seems to me probable that Archebiosis is true.
In 1876 Haeckel mailed Darwin a copy of his recently published The History of Creation. Darwin wrote back thanking him but also viewed with caution Haeckel’s endorsement of spontaneous generation (Darwin 1887, Vol 3:180),
My dear Hckel,I thank you for the present of your book, and I am heartily glad to see its great success. You will do a wonderful amount of good in spreading the doctrine of Evolution, supporting it as you do by so many original observations. [...] I will at the same time send a paper which has interested me; it need not be returned. It contains a singular statement bearing on so-called Spontaneous Generation. I much wish that this latter question could be settled, but I see no prospect of it. If it could be proved true this would be most important to us [...].
The above article from Pubmed Central shows that there were numerous other evolutionists who were discussing 'spontaneous generation' as a part of evolution. German geologist Heinrich George Bronn who translated The Origin of Species in 1860 even added a chapter about how spontaneous generation fitted in with Darwin’s theory.
So it is quite true that those early evolutionists were in fact making such claims and this is why creationists were so opposed to their ideas.

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Message 2 of 2 (567988)
07-03-2010 6:49 PM


Thread Copied to Origin of Life Forum
Thread copied to the Evolution & Abiogenesis were originally one subject. thread in the Origin of Life forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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