“I finished your book yesterday. . . Since I read Von Baer’s Essays nine years ago no work on Natural History Science I have met with has made so great an impression on me & I do most heartily thank you for the great store of new views you have given me. . .
As for your doctrines I am prepared to go to the Stake if requisite. . .
I trust you will not allow yourself to be in any way disgusted or annoyed by the considerable abuse & misrepresentation which unless I greatly mistake is in store for you. . . And as to the curs which will bark and yelp — you must recollect that some of your friends at any rate are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often & justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead —
I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness
Letter of T. H. Huxley to Charles Darwin, November 23, 1859, regarding the Origin of Species”( www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/thuxley.html)
Huxley wrote about a lot things but he is remembered amongst Darwinists for just a few, such as his sea voyage like the one Darwin took and Huxley's well known debate with the Bishop of Oxford on the subject of evolution and his defense of evolution.
1870
“Thomas H. Huxley's Biogenesis and Abiogenesis address is the first clear statement of the basic outlines of modern Darwinian science on the question of the origin of life. The terms “biogenesis” (for life only from pre-existing life) and “abiogenesis” (for life from nonliving materials, what had previously been called spontaneous generation) as used by Huxley in this speech have become the standard terms for discussing the subject of how life originates. The speech offered powerful support for Pasteur's claim to have experimentally disproved spontaneous generation. The speech was also Huxley's attempt to define an orthodox Darwinian position on the question, and attempt to define as “non-Darwinian” all those Darwin supporters who believed that spontaneous generation up to the present day was an essential requirement of evolutionary science. Henry Charlton Bastian was the most prominent leader of that faction of Darwinians, though Huxley was so successful in defining them out of the story that very few people today even realize that there WERE Darwinians who were serious, talented evolutionary scientists, yet also thought abiogenesis was necessary in evolution up to the present day.”
Biogenesis and Abiogenesis
James Strick. 1999.Darwinism and the Origin of Life: the Role of H.C. Bastian in the British Spontaneous Generation Debates, 1868-1873. Journal of the History of Biology, 32:1-42
www.asm.org/membership/index.asp?bid=16731 But I won't do all your research for you.
Until the last sentence, I didn’t realize that the post was meant as an argument against what I had said. lol I thought you were simply adding to what I had said.
Yes, I know Huxley was a Darwinist, and defended Darwinism vigorously.
I was simply mentioning that he defended Pasteur similarly. Not just in his address to the BAAS, but in many other speeches and publications.
“Huxley wrote about a lot things but he is remembered amongst Darwinists for just a few, such as his sea voyage like the one Darwin took and Huxley’s well known debate with the Bishop of Oxford on the subject of evolution and his defense of evolution.”
He was also probably the greatest comparative anatomist of the latter half of the 19th century. Don’t forget his famous feud with Owen and the “hippocampus minor”. It was also Huxley that first proposed that birds evolved from dinos.
The entire long BAAS address - which is traditionally supposed to be an overview of what’s going on throughout the science world - is essentially one big long argument against spontaneous generation and defense of Pasteur.
In the entire long address he makes merely one small remark, as an aside, in favor of abiogenesis, which you quoted. He gives no theory as to how it occurred, and even admits there’s no evidence in its favor - he admits it’s just a personal opinion. He obviously didn’t see it as crucial to Darwinism.
If Darwinism was disproven, there’s no reason to believe it would affect his beliefs regarding abiogenesis, and vice versa.
He likely did, however, see spontaneous generation as a competitor of sorts to Darwinism, and so in an oblique sense the address could be viewed as a defense to Darwinism.
Somebody’s hypothesis was shown to be incorrect by an experiment. Well that proves it the entire scientific method is flawed!
It is very sad when the opening statement of this article is incorrect.
I do not know which is worse, that the author does not know the difference between Abiogeneis and The Evolutionary Theory, or that he would knowingly create a falsehood.
While the origins of life are a question of interest to evolutionary biologist and frequently studied in conjunction with researchers from other fields such as geochemistry and organic chemistry, the core of evolutionary theory itself does not rest on a foundation that requires any knowledge about the origins of life on earth
Setting up the straw man. The usual creationist tactic of misdirection, next is going to come the name-calling,
So I might as well give you a chance to complete the trifecta by providing a question to avoid.
Name a gene that shows no sign of an evolutionary origin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkED8cWRu4Q&feature=player_embedded