Evolution has been Disproven

Evolution does not require that life come from non-life, evolution only applies to existing life.Louis Pasteur's experiment does not prove the impossibility of life from non-life, instead what he showed was that the bacteria and other nasties that infect rotting meat come from the environment rather than being spontaneously generated (as was the prevailing theory). No-one has ever performed an experiment, or presented experimental proof, that life cannot come from non-life.In fact the reverese is true, everyday billions of animals, and plants, convert dead matter into living tissue. You're doing it right now, and every time you eat. Every pregnant animal on earth is currently converting dead matter into a new life.

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.

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]

Information increase is a non-isssue. Let me give you an example, suppose I take a perfectly smooth cube of stone and then smack it really hard with a pickaxe. Guess what? I've actually increased the information content of that bit of stone! Just by smacking it with a pickaxe. Now, why on earth would you think mutation combined with natural selection couldn't manage it?

I repeat Care to answer? How exactly is it that Pasteurs experiment proves what you claims it does?On your dictionary references: So? Ordinary dictionaries are not the place to look for the meaning of jargon. Jargon by its very definition will have a subtely, or in some cases hugely, different meaning to the common usage of the word. Your insistance on equating the two terms simply makes the issue unclear.

You have shown that some sources use the two terms to mean the same thing. This is no way shows that the two are scientifically equivalent.More importantly: You have yet to explain how Pasteur's experiment applies to the origin of life 4 to 4.5 billion years ago. Until you do so, you're just flapping your trap.

Muncaster is wrong. Miller and Urey attempted to reproduce the conditions on the early earth and see what it produced. They had no intention of actually producing life. Their experiment showed that under the conditions they believed represented the early earth, amino acids did indeed form. Since then we've found that that amino acids are actually pretty easy to form, and can be found even in space (in comets, for example).As it happens, since the time of their experiment our understanding of the early atmosphere has changed, and our understanding of the probable origins of life have also changed. It seems likely that life did not evolve in some 'mucky pond' on the earths surface, but rather in geothermal vents many miles from the surface. Not only do these vents form the necessary building blocks of life in great numbers, but they would also allow life to form in an environment protected from the devastating surface bombardment the early earth was undergoing.Also investigation of earth's lifeforms seems to show that hyperthermophiles (those microbes adapted to living in the heat found at geothermal vents) are in fact the closest to the ancient common ancestor. Of course, even in confirmed, this wouldn't show that life orginally emerged there, but only that the common ancestor lived there.