[js1138]

What's the deal, PatrickHenry? Has the evolutionist side of the debate now switched horses and accepted the assertion of the numerous (and now banned) posters who argued too passionately that abiogenesis was part and parcel of the Darwin's theory of evolution

Wow. You walk away for a while, and look what happens. Are you referring to this paragraph?

The modern science of abiogenesis addresses a fundamentally different question: the ultimate origin of life itself. Pasteur had proved that abiogenesis was impossible for complex organisms. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution put forward a mechanism whereby such organisms might evolve over millennia from simple forms, but it did not address the original spark, from which even simple organisms might have arisen. Darwin was aware of the problem. In a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker of February 1 1871, he made the suggestion that life may have begun in a "warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, [so] that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes". He went on to explain that "at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed." In other words the presence of life itself prevents the spontaneous generation of simple organic compounds from occurring on Earth today - a circumstance which makes the search for the first life dependent on the laboratory.

What is it about this concept that switches off so many brains?

Let's review some simple concepts, one at a time.

1. Evolution is about change in living populations over time.
2. Evolution can occur regardless of the origin of life.
3. Evolution can occur even if life originates multiple times.
4. Evolution can occur even if an outside agency intervenes.
5. We have strong evidence that all living things on earth are related by common descent.
6. We have good reason to believe that once life exists, the conditions for abiogenesis are unlikely to exist.
7. Nothing about evolution excludes or requires abiogenesis.
8. Nothing about evolution excludes or requires the direct creation of life.
9. Darwin speculated about both scenerios. He did not say one or the other was correct.
10. There is nothing about evolution that requires only one of these conjectures to be correct.

I hope separating these concepts into short declatative sentences will at least provide the basis for discussing where your confusion arises.

[Alamo-Girl]

The "Oooooooh. Great minds and so forth. " in your post 1453 to ahayes is the reason I lumped my reply to the both of you.

I was taken by surprise considering how long you have been on the forum and all your posts which I have read, the major points of which are fairly summed up at 1493.

In your list, item 6 is the point I've been trying to underscore over and again in our little sidebar. You said:

We have strong evidence that all living things on earth are related by common descent.

That of course, is the evolutionary tree of life - which means life comes from life under Darwin's theory of evolution because he did not address the inception of life at all (abiogensis v biogenesis).

It is a continuum. Darwin's presupposition, his very theory is built on "omne vivum ex vivo" which IS the Law of Biogenesis.