What are abiogenesis and spontaneous generation?
1 Answer
abiogenesis is the theory that life can come from non life. Spontaneous generation was the theory that life came from non life as observed with maggots in meat and other natural process.
Explanation:
Spontaneous generation was widely believed before Redi's and Louis Pastour's experiments. Life springing into existence could be observed in multiple places in the world.
Redi's experiment excluding flies from the meat proved that without life no life came into existence spontaneously
Louis Pastour's experiments with wine proved that if "germs" in the air could be prevented from entering the wine no life came into existence spontaneously.
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These experiment formed the basis of the theory of biogenesis that life comes only from life and the cells come only from cells.
However the world view of the enlightenment believed that everything must happen by natural cause. So if there was a time when there was no life then life must have logically come from non life. This view gave rise to the theory of abiogensis that somehow in the early history of the earth a living cell was formed by accidental natural causes.
The living cell is an amazingly complex structure requiring information codes that can be replicated and passed on to future generations. The living cell also requires complex proteins and enzymes in order to survive an environment that always moves toward destruction and disorder.
At this point in time there are no credible theories about how the first cell could have come about by totally natural causes. So abiogensis remains an unsupported theory demanded only by the world view of material realism
