>This is despite it actually being a *law* of biology (i.e. a rule to which
>there has never been observed to be any exceptions), that life only arises
>from life:
>
> "In its affirmative form, the law of Biogenesis states that all
> living
> organisms are the progeny of living organisms that went before
> them. The familiar Latin tag is omne vivum ex vivo-All that is alive
> came from something living; in other words, every organism has an
> unbroken genealogical pedigree extending back to the first living
> things. In its negative form, the law can be taken to deny the
> occurrence (or even the possibility) of spontaneous generation. ...
> The Law of Biogenesis is arguably the most fundamental in biology
> ..." (Medawar P. & Medawar J., "Aristotle to Zoos: A
> Philosophical Dictionary of Biology", in Bird W.R., "The Origin of
> Species Revisited", 1991, Vol. I, pp.311-312).
>
>Thus Biology may be the only branch of science in conflict with its most
>well-established principle!
Over the years debating creationists it continues to astonish me that there
are modern people who can't tell the difference between spontaneous
generation and abiogenesis. Spontaneous generation--worms from mud, maggots
from meat--gives rise to extremely sophisticated and complex organisms.
Abiogenesis is about strings of amino acids (or whatever) becoming
self-replicating, something that historical people could not have observed.
>Also, as I pointed out, the above was a "prediction" [that abiogenesis
>would not be discovered] (made in 1984 - the
>original date of the book) which to date has held true.
as long as there are dark spots in our knowledge, you have hope. If I were
you, though, it would bother me that my entire argument rested on a hope of
continued ignorance.
>There is no `having it both ways here'. Chris is confused by his own
>misleading *metaphor* - "selection". ID theorists maintain that
>*unintelligent* natural processes (including so-called natural `selection'),
>are insufficient to explain the origin of life.
>
>The use of *real* selection by *intelligent* human designers is what ID
>would expect should be successful (unless design requires a superhuman
>level of intelligence). In fact some time ago, I posted a multi-point ID
>research program which included just this point.
humans are not outside the natural environment of the cattle (or dogs or
whatever). We become part of what's doing the selection in stead of some
kind of predator. In fact we *are* just another predator to the cattle.
On the other hand I thought Behe, et. al. were trying to convince us that
the designer designed on the molecular level, that he/she/it tweaks the
mutations, and does not behave as the selector of otherwise random
mutations which is what animal breeders do. Humans do not shape cattle on
the molecular level as the designer is supposed to do.
Susan
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