quote:
Huxley's address can be found Here
And I note that it supports my points. Huxley clearly argues against the view that modern life forms regularly form from inorganic sources.
It is a matter of everyday experience that it is difficult to prevent many articles of food from becoming covered with mould; that fruit, sound enough to all appearance, often contains grubs at the core; that meat, left to itself in the air, is apt to putrefy and swarm with maggots. Even ordinary water, if allowed to stand in an open vessel, sooner or later becomes turbid and full of living matter.
However he does not rule out the possibility that it might happen or have happened:
But though I cannot express this conviction of mine too strongly, I must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I intend to suggest that no such thing as Abiogenesis ever has taken place in the past, or ever will take place in the future.
quote:
Now clearly Huxley was looking into the far distant past for this event. He was looking for it to be a chemical event. He was looking for some sort of chemical evolutionary pathway. He was looking for a "simple" form of life. But he was honest enough to adreess that this was his reasoning, and not a matter of observation. It was his opinion based on philosophical faith. All of the abiogenesis theories today have the same elements that Huxley declared defeated by the law of biogenesis.
It is absolutely clear that Huxley did NOT make such a declaration. Even your quote makes that clear. In fact he explicitly states that the evidence is not strong enough to come to such a conclusion.
Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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