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To: betty boop
there are people here who would be crushed by the idea that life cannot arise spontaneously from physics and chemistry

No, actually there aren't. The problem is with your terminology. "Spontaneous," as in "spontaneous generation," has historically been used in biology to describe living things arising from non-life as a regular and reoccurring phenomena of nature as opposed to anything like a specific process of chemical evolution which presumably only happened once, presumably of some significant span of time, and under particular conditions.

IOW you need to avoid the word "spontaneous" if you're intending to refer to modern ideas about abiogenesis or biopoesis else you'll invariably cause confusion because of the term's historical connotations.

1,629 posted on 09/28/2006 10:59:06 AM PDT by Stultis
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To: Stultis; betty boop
The problem is with your terminology. "Spontaneous," as in "spontaneous generation," has historically been used in biology to describe living things arising from non-life as a regular and reoccurring phenomena of nature as opposed to anything like a specific process of chemical evolution which presumably only happened once, presumably of some significant span of time, and under particular conditions.

Specifically, conditions that were otherwise abiotic, or at least "prebiotic." Which leads to a point which often bugs me about these debates.

It would not be realistic to expect an abiotic but chemically organic soup to form in a world where cellular life has adapted to seemingly every possible niche and condition, including extreme temperatures and the eating of oil spills, nylon, etc. Thus, "Why doesn't this happen now, everywhere, all the time?" is, if not a silly question, one that reflects naivety in the person posing it. It is a strike against anti-Es that they endlessly recycle such easily refuted chestnuts in all seeming earnestness and seriousness.

1,679 posted on 09/28/2006 3:09:29 PM PDT by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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