Evolution has been Disproven

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I'm afraid I'm still a little hazy on the distinction between spontaneous generation and abiogenesis.

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Defender,Spontaneous generation was/is the idea that living organisms are produced by certain physical processes, like decay. For example, consider a lump of meat. As that meat ages and decays, you'll start to see squiggly, squirmy, cuddly maggots. The idea behind spontaneous generation is that the meat itself, as it decays, converts directly into the maggots. This is the idea that Pasteur debunked. Abiogenesis is the idea that simple molecules began to catalyze themselves-- quite a few molecules can do this-- and, over hundreds of millions of years, the better autocatalysts dominated and we call those survivors 'life.'------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

I am going to give a slightly different answer to the others.Technically spontaneous generation and abiogenesis could be seen as meaning hte same thing. However in actual use the terms refer to very different things.Spontaneous generation referred to the belief that modern life was coming into existence from non-living matter as a matter of course - in a relatively short period of time (days to months). In Pasteur's particular experiment - as I stated - the point was to show that microbes caused decay rather than being a product of decay,Abiogenesis refers to modern research on the origins of life. It assumes that the first life will be far simpler than modern life (how simple depends on where the dividing line between life and non-life is drawn). It relies not on modern conditions, but on reconstruction of the conditions billions of years ago. It does not assume that the process could be complete in days, months or even centuries.The underlying ideas are really very very different, and Pasteur's experiment in no way disproves modern ideas of abiogenesis. It can't - it doesn't consider the conditions or the chemistry or the timescales relevant to modern theories at all. Because it wasn't intended to - it was intneded to deal with ideas of spontaneous generation current in Pasteur's time.So in summary. Pasteur's experiemnt did not and could not disprove abiogenesis
And even if it did it still would not and could not disprove evolution.

defenderofthefaith, Like I said in my last post & you ignored, this is logically fallacious. An equivalent argument would be, every action we see in the universe occurs naturally (in the materialist sense), therefore God can't exist because He is supernatural.Mark------------------
"I can't prove creationism, but they can't prove evolution. It is [also] a religion, so it should not be taught....Christians took over the school board and voted in creationism. That can be done in any school district anywhere, and it ought to be done." Says Kent "consistent" Hovind in "Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution Chapter 6."

OK, let's look in the Oxford Concise Dictionary again:spontaneous generation n. Supposed production of living from non-living matter as inferred from appearance of life (due in fact to bacteria etc.) in some infusions...abiogenesis n. spontaneous generation; supposed origin of life by formation of organic from inorganic substances... {Emphasis added}It seems to me that the dictionary doesn't even need both these entries. They look like the same thing. Abiogenesis doesn't even mention a long time period.Louis Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation, which apparently is only distinguished from abiogenesis by long time periods. Also you have mentioned that spontaneous generation focuses on decay from organic matter.
How is abiogenesis made more possible by using a long time period? How is it made more possible by using no organic material rather than some leftover organic material?Finally, since abiogenesis is taught in classrooms as fact, and the burden of proof is thus on the proponents of abiogenesis, how has it been demonstrated as a proven scientific fact?

I suggest you reread my post above (post 19). The difference is much greater than just the time periods involved.

Take a clue.Spontaneous generation:
In hours or days:
Small amounts of chemicals -> InsectsAbiogenesis + evolution:
In several billions of years:
Huge amounts of chemicals and energy sources -> polymers -> self replicating polymers -> hypercycles -> probionts -> prokaryotes -> eukaryotes -> colonial eukaryotes -> simple invertebrates -> simple chordates -> arthropods -> insectsGet the picture?------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

So, abiogenesis is gradual change from large amounts of chemicals over long periods of time. However, spontaneous generation seems still similar. Because, although you said that spontaneous generation was theorised to produce any sort of living matter from non-living matter. That's what it says in the theory. Pasteur disproved microbial spontaneous generation for example.Now:
If Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation, and abiogenesis is different by virtue of long time periods, gradual change and large amounts of chemicals...1. Pasteur disproved the assumption that microbes could come from nowhere. Were there any special conditions on the primeval earth that could have enabled microbes to come from nowhere back then? How can you prove abiogenesis if you don't know what the primordial conditions were?
2. Spontaneous generation is nowhere qualified as having to use only small amounts of chemicals. Would that mean that Pasteur's theory would have been disproven if we redid his experiment today with massive amounts of chemicals?
3. Precisely how would long time periods add to the chances of life coming from non-life? Is Pasteur's demonstration contradicted if the chemicals are left in their beakers for millions of years?
4. If the above qualities really do distinguish abiogenesis from spontaneous generation, why is abiogenesis actually defined as being spontaneous generation? [See the Oxford Dictionary - my last post]If I haven't understood something, please accept my apologies. The most important question is, if the conditions of a billion years ago are unknown, and abiogenesis is today taught as being a fact, can anyone scientifically demonstrate abiogenesis? A scientific theory must be observably proven before it is accepted as true.

The whole spontaneous generation vs. abiogenesis meaning is a side issue, Defender, whichever term you wish to use Pasteur's experiment does not show that it is impossible for life to have arisen from non-life given half a billion years in whatever conditions prevailed in the primordial earth. It was a bit of meat left in a glass jar for a week, how could it possibly have shown this? If you disagree, present your argument.I'd be quite worried if anyone is presenting a theory of abiogenesis as a proven fact. We haven't reached anywhere near that stage yet, all we have is a collection of hypothesises, some experiments, some mathematical models showing plausability and some emperical results showing the conditions present in the early earth. All of this shows quite convincingly (but not yet conclusively) the possibility of abiogenesis, however we have no direct evidence of it, nor is it particularly likely that we ever will (tiny, fragile proto-creatures do not exactly fossilise well and even if they did fossilise they would be almost impossible to find).We also lack any credible alternative theory.

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If I haven't understood something, please accept my apologies. The most important question is, if the conditions of a billion years ago are unknown, and abiogenesis is today taught as being a fact, can anyone scientifically demonstrate abiogenesis? A scientific theory must be observably proven before it is accepted as true.

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There is no theory of abiogenesis. There are various hypotheses that have been proposed and are being tested for example here News articles and features | New Scientist but there is certainly insufficient evidence to warrant a theory of abiogenesis. I do not know that abiogenesis is taught at all much less as a fact in school....I personally only had passing mention of it in high school biology which dwelled mostly on things like minimal requirements for life etc.

OK, thanks. But if abiogenesis is merely a hypothesis, then why isn't evolution itself merely a hypothesis? Because you need abiogenesis in order to have evolution.
Since the modern theory of evolution requires its first simple life form to have come from no life, in order for evolution to be a proven fact, abiogenesis must first be proven.I notice nobody has replied to the other point I introduced a way back, about chirality. We could always start another thread, but these debates are flexible.

Why is it that creationist are incapable of understanding this simple point? Evolution does not involve abiogenesis. Evolution occurs only when you have a replicator (life). Evolution has overwhelming support from the evidence, it is as close to proven as a scientific theory gets.How that first life arose we don't know for sure. But however it got there it evolved from there. Evolution doesn't even care if the first life was a simple replicator, or RNA, or a cell. We still know that it got to the current diversity by Natural Selection. Chirality is the grand non-issue. These properties follow naturally from the structure of the chemicals involved. Life has to use one or the other, and once it was using one it couldn't change to the other. So one or other had to get fixed in the population.[This message has been edited by Mr Jack, 09-18-2003]

Evolution has no more need for abiogenesis than any other branch of biology. Without living organisms to study there would be no study of living organisms.Evolution requires life - it has no requirements as to the origin of that life.

your arguments about chirality were dealt with in this thread that you started http://EvC Forum: Faith versus Science -->EvC Forum: Faith versus Science
and then dropped out of.

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OK, thanks. But if abiogenesis is merely a hypothesis, then why isn't evolution itself merely a hypothesis? Because you need abiogenesis in order to have evolution.

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Why? Why can't first replicators have been specially created rather than come about by abiogenesis evolve?

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Since the modern theory of evolution requires its first simple life form to have come from no life,

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It doesn't. Only the creationist straw-man version requires this. For many years I believed in the special creation of the first replicators; I still fully accepted evolution.

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in order for evolution to be a proven fact, abiogenesis must first be proven.

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No, you don't. We don't know how or when exactly the first Anglo-Saxons came to England, but we can study Anglo-Saxon history.[This message has been edited by Karl, 09-18-2003]