The Law of Biogenesis

[Pahu]

The Law of Biogenesis

Spontaneous generation (the emergence of life from nonliving matter) has never been observed. All observations have shown that life comes only from life. This has been observed so consistently it is called the law of biogenesis. The theory of evolution conflicts with this scientific law when claiming that life came from nonliving matter through natural processes (a).

Evolutionary scientists reluctantly accept the law of biogenesis (b). However, some say that future studies may show how life could come from lifeless matter, despite the virtually impossible odds. Others say that their theory of evolution doesn’t begin until the first life somehow arose. Still others say the first life was created, then evolution occurred. All evolutionists recognize that, based on scientific observations, life comes only from life.

a. And yet, leading evolutionists are forced to accept some form of spontaneous generation. For example, a former Harvard University professor and Nobel Prize winner in physiology and medicine acknowledged the dilemma.

“The reasonable view [during the two centuries before Louis Pasteur] was to believe in spontaneous generation; the only alternative, to believe in a single, primary act of supernatural creation. There is no third position.” George Wald, “The Origin of Life,” Scientific American, Vol. 190, August 1954, p. 46.

Wald rejects creation, despite the impossible odds of spontaneous generation.

“One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are—as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation.” Ibid.

Later, Wald appeals to huge amounts of time to accomplish what seemed to be the impossibility of spontaneous generation.

“Time is in fact the hero of the plot. ... Given so much time, the ‘impossible’ becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles.” Ibid., p. 48.

What Wald did not appreciate in 1954 (before, as just one example, the genetic code was discovered) was how the complexity in life is vastly greater than anyone at that time could have imagined. [see pages 13-21]

So, today, the impossibility of spontaneous generation is even more firmly established, regardless of the time available. But unfortunately, several generations of professors and textbooks with Wald’s perspective have so impacted our universities that it is difficult for evolutionists to change direction.

Evolutionists also do not recognize:

that with increasing time (their “miracle maker”) comes increasing degradation of the fragile environment on which life depends, and

that creationists have much better explanations (such as the flood) for the scientific observations that evolutionists thought showed increasing time.

Readers will later see this.

b. “The beginning of the evolutionary process raises a question which is as yet unanswerable. What was the origin of life on this planet? Until fairly recent times there was a pretty general belief in the occurrence of ‘spontaneous generation.’ It was supposed that lowly forms of life developed spontaneously from, for example, putrefying meat. But careful experiments, notably those of Pasteur, showed that this conclusion was due to imperfect observation, and it became an accepted doctrine [the law of biogenesis] that life never arises except from life. So far as actual evidence goes, this is still the only possible conclusion. But since it is a conclusion that seems to lead back to some supernatural creative act, it is a conclusion that scientific men find very difficult of acceptance. It carries with it what are felt to be, in the present mental climate, undesirable philosophic implications, and it is opposed to the scientific desire for continuity. It introduces an unaccountable break in the chain of causation, and therefore cannot be admitted as part of science unless it is quite impossible to reject it. For that reason most scientific men prefer to believe that life arose, in some way not yet understood, from inorganic matter in accordance with the laws of physics and chemistry.” J. W. N. Sullivan, The Limitations of Science (New York: The Viking Press, Inc., 1933), p. 94.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

[DC10]

The Law of Biogenesis

Spontaneous generation (the emergence of life from nonliving matter) has never been observed. All observations have shown that life comes only from life. This has been observed so consistently it is called the law of biogenesis. The theory of evolution conflicts with this scientific law when claiming that life came from nonliving matter through natural processes (a).

Evolutionary scientists reluctantly accept the law of biogenesis (b). However, some say that future studies may show how life could come from lifeless matter, despite the virtually impossible odds. Others say that their theory of evolution doesn’t begin until the first life somehow arose. Still others say the first life was created, then evolution occurred. All evolutionists recognize that, based on scientific observations, life comes only from life.

a. And yet, leading evolutionists are forced to accept some form of spontaneous generation. For example, a former Harvard University professor and Nobel Prize winner in physiology and medicine acknowledged the dilemma.

“The reasonable view [during the two centuries before Louis Pasteur] was to believe in spontaneous generation; the only alternative, to believe in a single, primary act of supernatural creation. There is no third position.” George Wald, “The Origin of Life,” Scientific American, Vol. 190, August 1954, p. 46.

Wald rejects creation, despite the impossible odds of spontaneous generation.

“One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are—as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation.” Ibid.

Later, Wald appeals to huge amounts of time to accomplish what seemed to be the impossibility of spontaneous generation.

“Time is in fact the hero of the plot. ... Given so much time, the ‘impossible’ becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles.” Ibid., p. 48.

What Wald did not appreciate in 1954 (before, as just one example, the genetic code was discovered) was how the complexity in life is vastly greater than anyone at that time could have imagined. [see pages 13-21]

So, today, the impossibility of spontaneous generation is even more firmly established, regardless of the time available. But unfortunately, several generations of professors and textbooks with Wald’s perspective have so impacted our universities that it is difficult for evolutionists to change direction.

Evolutionists also do not recognize:

that with increasing time (their “miracle maker”) comes increasing degradation of the fragile environment on which life depends, and

that creationists have much better explanations (such as the flood) for the scientific observations that evolutionists thought showed increasing time.

Readers will later see this.

b. “The beginning of the evolutionary process raises a question which is as yet unanswerable. What was the origin of life on this planet? Until fairly recent times there was a pretty general belief in the occurrence of ‘spontaneous generation.’ It was supposed that lowly forms of life developed spontaneously from, for example, putrefying meat. But careful experiments, notably those of Pasteur, showed that this conclusion was due to imperfect observation, and it became an accepted doctrine [the law of biogenesis] that life never arises except from life. So far as actual evidence goes, this is still the only possible conclusion. But since it is a conclusion that seems to lead back to some supernatural creative act, it is a conclusion that scientific men find very difficult of acceptance. It carries with it what are felt to be, in the present mental climate, undesirable philosophic implications, and it is opposed to the scientific desire for continuity. It introduces an unaccountable break in the chain of causation, and therefore cannot be admitted as part of science unless it is quite impossible to reject it. For that reason most scientific men prefer to believe that life arose, in some way not yet understood, from inorganic matter in accordance with the laws of physics and chemistry.” J. W. N. Sullivan, The Limitations of Science (New York: The Viking Press, Inc., 1933), p. 94.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

The theory of evolution is usually thought of as being applicable only to things that are already alive. However, I think it is true to say that many ideas in the scientific literature about the origin of life itself rely on selection processes akin to natural selection.

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

The theory of evolution is usually thought of as being applicable only to things that are already alive.

Popularizers like Dawkins disagree. Are you familiar with his Weasel program? It attempts to demonstrate the origin of life using natural selection on abiotic matter.

I would agree that it's senseless to pretend that such could be the case, but it's not some kind of Creationist misunderstanding to address the application of evolution on non-living material.

However, I think it is true to say that many ideas in the scientific literature about the origin of life itself rely on selection processes akin to natural selection.

Natural selection only works through reproduction. NS selects from what's available among living organisms, cutting out organisms that are less adapted for certain environments. Without life there is no pressure from selection, i.e. nothing from which to select. The process fundamentally requires living organisms that can reproduce, otherwise it would have to be a physical force, physically moving abiotic matter around, and selecting not for survival advantage but deliberating for future potential advantage... and an immaterial force acting physically to assemble something with deliberation would simply be a description of God or some kind of ghost or whatever.

[Don Fanucci]

All observations have shown that life comes only from life.

Nope. Read up on Craig Venter. Very cool seminar by the way. Four bottles of chemicals, a computer, and voila.

[Isaiah 6:8]

All observations have shown that life comes only from life.

Nope. Read up on Craig Venter. Very cool seminar by the way. Four bottles of chemicals, a computer, and voila.

I did I read the published paper. I am not a geneticist but I got the gist of what he did He did not create life. He created a gene that controlled an already existing bacteria. He did this by using yeast to grow his new DNA sequence. Without using existing life he could not have even done this.

You cannot take the bottles and mix them nothing will happen .

All this proves is that you need life to create life.

So yes all life arises from life. Unless you are stating that the scientist was not alive.

[MorningGlory]

The only one who can accomplish biogenesis is God Himself.....what's so hard to understand about this?

[Fez]

The only one who can accomplish biogenesis is God Himself.....what's so hard to understand about this?

So the primeval puddle of chemical mix and the lightning bolt theory is wrong?

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

All observations have shown that life comes only from life.

Nope. Read up on Craig Venter. Very cool seminar by the way. Four bottles of chemicals, a computer, and voila.

This is the kind of misinformation that so frequently exhaults itself above what the findings recommend.

[Don Fanucci]

All observations have shown that life comes only from life.

Nope. Read up on Craig Venter. Very cool seminar by the way. Four bottles of chemicals, a computer, and voila.

I did I read the published paper. I am not a geneticist but I got the gist of what he did He did not create life. He created a gene that controlled an already existing bacteria. He did this by using yeast to grow his new DNA sequence. Without using existing life he could not have even done this.

You cannot take the bottles and mix them nothing will happen .

All this proves is that you need life to create life.

So yes all life arises from life. Unless you are stating that the scientist was not alive.

Ummmm. No. He didn't create a gene, he synthesized an entire genome from the four bases that are the building blocks--got them out of a bottle; one bottle, one base. The yeast were used to knit the individual fragments together. It can be done synthetically, but its cheaper to use yeast. most molecualr biologists have done these steps at some point in their life, and many do them every day. Essentially, the yeast step of the process is combining the oligonucleotides (strings of the 4 bases) into subsequently longer fragments, until you eventually have one big fragment. And no, he didn't use it to control an existing bacteria. He took the cell membrane, after removing the bacterial DNA, and inserted his synthetic genome into it, then booted the whole thing up into a living, replicating organism. This all can be done on a lab bench, but using living organisms as tools is cheaper. At some point the whole thing will be done from simple chemicals, but at this point, the key purpose of the paper is to prove that you can make a genome de novo, and have it function.

Edited July 16, 2011 by Don Fanucci

[methinkshe]

All observations have shown that life comes only from life.

Nope. Read up on Craig Venter. Very cool seminar by the way. Four bottles of chemicals, a computer, and voila.

I did I read the published paper. I am not a geneticist but I got the gist of what he did He did not create life. He created a gene that controlled an already existing bacteria. He did this by using yeast to grow his new DNA sequence. Without using existing life he could not have even done this.

You cannot take the bottles and mix them nothing will happen .

All this proves is that you need life to create life.

So yes all life arises from life. Unless you are stating that the scientist was not alive.

Ummmm. No. He didn't create a gene, he synthesized an entire genome from the four bases that are the building blocks--got them out of a bottle; one bottle, one base. The yeast were used to knit the individual fragments together. It can be done synthetically, but its cheaper to use yeast. most molecualr biologists have done these steps at some point in their life, and many do them every day. Essentially, the yeast step of the process is combining the oligonucleotides (strings of the 4 bases) into subsequently longer fragments, until you eventually have one big fragment. And no, he didn't use it to control an existing bacteria. He took the cell membrane, after removing the bacterial DNA, and inserted his synthetic genome into it, then booted the whole thing up into a living, replicating organism. This all can be done on a lab bench, but using living organisms as tools is cheaper. At some point the whole thing will be done from simple chemicals, but at this point, the key purpose of the paper is to prove that you can make a genome de novo, and have it function.

Scientific American doesn't agree that anything new was created. Amusingly, Craig Venter is labelled a "drama queen" - "the Lady Gaga of Science" - full of hype and self-promotion. Lol!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=craig-venter-has-neither-creatednor-2010-05-27

Craig Venter has neither created--nor demystified--life

By John Horgan

Craig Venter is the Lady Gaga of science. Like her, he is a drama queen, an over-the-top performance artist with a genius for self-promotion. Hype is what Craig Venter does, and he does it extremely well, whether touting the decoding of his own genome several years ago or his construction of a hybrid bacterium this year. In a typical Venter touch sections of the bacterium's DNA translate into portentous quotes, such as this one from James Joyce: "To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, and to re-create life out of life."

So I don't fault Venter for hyping his recent achievement, but I do fault others who should know better, such as the bioethicist Arthur Caplan . "What seemed to be an intractable puzzle, with significant religious overtones, has been solved," Caplan proclaims on this Web site . Venter and his colleagues have "created a novel life-form from man-made parts." Caplan warns that "this hugely powerful technology does need oversight" (no doubt by bioethicists like Caplan).

Actually, Venter has taken just another incremental step in the human manipulation of life, which began millennia ago when our ancestors started breeding dogs and ducks and accelerated recently as a result of advances in biotechnology. In terms of scariness, the synthesis of a poliovirus in 2002 freaked me out much more than Venter's work.

Venter’s team synthesized and modified DNA from one type of bacteria and inserted the artificial genome into another bacterial species whose own DNA had been extracted. "The form of life that was created was not new," Mark Bedau, a philosopher at Reed College and editor of the journal Artificial Life , said in Science . "What was essentially done was the re-creation of an existing bacterial form of life, except that it was given a prosthetic genome (synthesized in the laboratory), and except that the genome was put into the cytoplasm of a slightly different species."

As Bedau and others point out, scientists still have not come close to creating a living organism from nonbiological materials, especially ones that might have existed on Earth four billion years ago. In other words, scientists have not shown how life began, how inanimate materials become animate.

This problem of life's origin appears harder today than in 1953, after a 23-year-old graduate student named Stanley Miller filled a glass chamber with methane, ammonia, hydrogen (representing the atmosphere) and water (the oceans). A spark-discharge device zapped the gases with simulated lightning while a heating coil kept the waters bubbling. Within a few days the water and gases were stained with a reddish goo rich in amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. (Jeffrey Bada, a biochemist and former student of Miller, recently reanalyzed Miller's old samples and discovered that they contain even more amino acids than Miller had realized.)

Miller and other scientists thought that they would quickly demonstrate in detail how genesis unfolded, but that hasn't happened. When I interviewed Miller in the early 1990s, he admitted that the problem of life's origin had turned out to be much harder than he had imagined. He was nonetheless still confident that one day scientists would crack the riddle of life's origin: "It will be in the nature of something that will make you say, 'Jesus, there it is. How could you have overlooked this for so long?' And everybody will be totally convinced." Miller died three years ago , his dream unfulfilled.

There are now almost as many theories of life's origin as there are theorists. Perhaps the most popular is the "RNA world" theory, which posits ribonucleic acid as the first biomolecule. Whereas DNA cannot replicate without the help of enzymes, RNA can act as it own enzyme, snipping itself in two and splicing itself back together again. But RNA and its components are difficult to synthesize in a laboratory, let alone under plausible prebiotic conditions. Moreover, once RNA is synthesized it can make new copies of itself only with a great deal of coaxing by a chemist. Stanley Miller, among others, believed that some simpler—and possibly quite dissimilar—molecule must have paved the way for RNA, but no strong candidate has emerged.

Arthur Caplan declares that Venter and other scientists have dispelled the notion that life "is sacred, special, ineffable and beyond human understanding." Wrong. We still have no idea how life began, or whether life exists only here on our lonely planet or pervades the cosmos. One of the great ironies of modern science is that as we gain more power over life, it remains as fundamentally mysterious as ever.