Talk:Biogenesis

This is very bad "Law of Biogenesis and Creationism"

I agree. The section of Law of Biogenesis and Creationism is purely opinion, and uses too broad of a paint brush. As it comes off as hateful or vindictive and a chip on ones shoulder. I can't believe such a part would still exist in Wikipedia for as long as it has. As being quite clearly written by a creationist, puhlease. That last part was pretty "partisan" and spoke for all creationists that support biogenesis when he wasn't even close.

Kevindk 19:30, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The section is now simply title "Law of Biogenesis" and reads like a typical Creationist tract. This should be changed to...

The law states that life forms such as mice, maggots, and bacteria cannot appear fully formed. The law says nothing, however, about the biogenesis of very primitive life from increasingly complex molecules. TheDevilYouKnow (talk) 14:12, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Quite clearly written by a creationist

As if it wasn't clear enough, the last sentence gives it away,

"Finally, they argue that once it has been conceded (as is conceded by theistic evolution) that the original cell was created by a divine being, there is no reason to believe He could not have created life in a variety of forms."

This whole article needs a rewrite.

You do something about it, then. Infraredeclipse 15:35, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.116.11.90 (talk) 16:10, 31 March 2007 (UTC).

If you ask me, what was there originally seemed perfectly reasonable as biogenesis itself can either be disproof once and for all of the Big Bang theory or proof that God exists (for those who need a prod in the right direction...) Lowri (talk) 14:05, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Nah. Biogenesis is a law, not a fact.Gralgrathor (talk) 10:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Biased, faaar too little CITING

Several claims in this article do not resonate with what is in the biology textbook sitting in front of me. Especially claims that "the earth's early atmosphere is pure speculation without basis" and "the most basic amino acids were formed in Miller's test tube but the atmosphere required to make them killed them soon after." I don't believe that Campbell's Biology (the textbook) is the "one truth", but I would like to see a citation before I write off what is widely accepted scientifically. Large parts of this article were CLEARLY written by a creationist or proponent of intelligent design. It just reeks of bias. There are whole paragraphs of assertions that are UNCITED. THIS SHOULD HAVE A TAG FOR BEING AN ARTICLE WITHOUT SOURCES and NOT HAVING A NEUTRAL POINT OF VIEW. It should be examined thoroughly by people with actual scientific knowledge that can back it up with sources.

I thought people had given up trying to use logic to prove the existence of God. It can't be proven logically, that's why FAITH is a big deal. Believing when there is no reason to believe other than faith. People who embrace logic won't be swayed by the skewing of scientific principles carried out by proponents of intelligent design, who have neither the guts to conclude that they're alone nor the faith to turn to God without logic. Either life is a miracle (which is defined by the property of being outside what makes sense in the normal world, such as gravity, the scientific method, etc), or it's not (and can be explained by what makes sense in the normal world).

Sorry for the rant, but CITE! Even if you're going to only show one side, at least provide evidence for your own arguments! (if there is any evidence... see I won't believe you if you don't CITE!) arghhh!

Inaccuracy

I will remove this sentence: (although the same criteria also discount anyone who is impotent, for the same reasons). If you look at the [Life] page, the criteria apply to lifeforms (species) not individuals. That's why mules, ants and impotent people are considerd alive and virusus not, as stated on the Life page. Anonymous, 12 Dec 11:53 PM, December 12, 2005

This is very bad

1. Irrelevant mentions ( ex: "life was never seen comming from dead matter" ) 2. No such thing as "creationist biology", creationists just say life was the result of a miracle and came out of nothing, which is a non-falsifiable hypothesis

Please, clean this article

• What exactly do you mean? Creationist biology is the creationist view on biology.(A few biologists adhere to that view) Creationists don't neccesarily say life was a result of a miracle. Keep in mind this is the Young-Earh creationist viewpoint on the article or an Intelligent Design. And Yec's believe life was created but then followed(and continues) adapatation etc, just not leaps in evolution.(Dinosaur-->bird, etc) So could you please clarify your points a bit more. Keep in mind this an online dictionary that expresses the views but doesn't delcare a fact unless it is which this article doesn't. If you like you can add to the Controversy sectionFalphin 19:54, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Leaps? Gralgrathor (talk) 08:36, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

The term "creationist biology" makes as such sense as "plumber's biology". Creationists are not scientists doing scientific research.203.71.28.216 04:52, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

CITE

Does anyone have any sources for any of the claims on this article? KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Spurious Statement

I corrected a possibly misleading statement and a number of grammatical errors. I believe that I was fair in portraying the intention of the statement; however, in it's form it was not appropriate. Feel free to return the concept or corrected argument to the article, addressing the following criticism.

Removed portion: "The organic makeup of life and the makeup viruses are not the same. Viruses feed of life and rarely live outside it's host for long."

1. Is the first statement refering to organic (chemical) makeup, or organic (physiological) makeup? It does posess much of the same chemical makeup (RNA, often DNA, protiens). Physiologically, life does not require organs (physiologically), There is a requirement for the life to be encapsulated in a cell; however this may be a falacy of accident.

2. "Viruses feed of[f] life..." This arguement is spurious and incomplete. Any organism that is not a producer is a consumer. Consumers feed off life. If you intend to state that viruses require a host in order to have the mechanisms required to reproduce, then you must state that.

3. Your claim is that a virus does not live, yet then you claim they do by stating: "viruses rarely live outside..." A possible correction: "Viruses are rarely viable if excluded from a host cell for an extended period of time"

rmosler 12:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Categorize and clarification

"The spontaneous generation that Pasteur and others disproved was the idea that life forms such as mice, maggots, and bacteria can appear fully formed. They disproved a form of creationism. There is no law of biogenesis saying that very primitive life cannot form from increasingly complex molecules." [1]

I believe this should be added to the entry to clarify what Pasteur and others were actually addressing with their law of biogenesis. Furthermore this article should be included in Biology, which I'll do now... but perhaps it should also be included in Creationism as well given their interest in adopting it. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 17:55, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

good stuff, as long as it's attributed. reasonable minds can disagree on the interpretation of the law, so we can attribute it, but not state it as fact. Ungtss 18:03, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Nah, it's outside of the scope of the article. The purpose is not to debate creation vs. evolution, but to provide information on the term biogenesis. While creationists do compare abiogenesis to generatio spontanea, I believe that comparison is better addressed in the Abiogenesis article than here, if at all. Gralgrathor (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Problem with "human attempts to create life"

In particular, I have a problem with the following quote: "Additionally, some point to lesser-known and controversial experiments such as those performed by Andrew Crosse as examples of abiogenesis." I looked up this link and found that Andrew Crosse produced an experiment in the 1800's in which he discovered the creation of insects in the lab, but later he concluded that he likely had an experiment contaminated with insect eggs. This experiment is lesser known for a reason, and I don't know of anybody who is pointing to it presently as an example of abiogenesis. I won't edit the statement because by some chance I may be mistaken and that some proponents of abiogenesis in fact are using Crosse's experiment as an argument. However, combined with some of the problems of above, I suspect that the article is written poorly and perhaps with bias (although I can see an attempt at neutrality). I advocate it's omission from Wikipedia. 16:39, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

What the heck's wrong with I.D.? Just because there's proof for I.D doesn't mean that people have to get all mad about it, saying that the article was "quite clearly written by a creationist". For all I know, most science text books are quite clearly written by an evolutionist! Anyway, I think those that don't teach the debate in biology class are dangerously violating our right to free speech. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.103.247.124 (talk • contribs) 20:07, 16 May 2007

Proof for ID? Well, you must have your work ahead of you correcting the wiki article on that! 68.227.169.133 (talk) 12:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I am unsure as to whether the "atmosphere" in Urey and Miller's experiment is now scientifically accepted as the correct one. Does anyone know? Wikiisawesome 16:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The "atmosphere" in Urey and Miller's experiment is no longer scientifically accepted as the correct one. It has been since discovered that the atmosphere at the proposed time of abiogenesis was similar to that of a recently erupted volcano. If someone could edit that, that would be fantastic. --SJHAGoalie (talk) 00:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

"Anyway, I think those that don't teach the debate in biology class are dangerously violating our right to free speech."

 Maybe in a politics class  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.14.231.238 (talk) 03:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC) 

Law of Biogenesis

Why is the law of biogenesis section so short with no link to scientific material, nor a link to how the law is actually written? It was also my understanding that the law of biogenesis deals with macro organisms such as rats and maggots. http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB000.html

In general Laws apply to all time, but they do not necessarily apply to all circumstances. Why do you put "modern organisms" when I am pretty sure it should be multicellular lifeforms?

Jaydstats (talk) 13:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The distinction "modern organisms" includes single celled organisms. Even bacteria have a variety of complex features (e.g. cell walls) unlikely to have been present at the start of life. Novangelis (talk) 14:40, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Nonetheless, the term used in the site I've given above of "very primitive life" would be a much better way to phrase this, because it does not have the concept of time as its motivation of difference between the law and the first lifeform. It is the level of complexity that is the difference, not the time at which it occurred. Laws sometimes do not apply in differing scopes (e.g. Einstein's correction to Newton Law of Motion), but they do apply to all time (at least to the starting of the universe and this was ~10 billion years after the start of the universe).Jaydstats (talk) 17:10, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

How is "very primitive life" anything more than a vague opposite of "modern organisms"? Modern, as in currently existing forms, is fairly distinct. Primitive can refer to currently living organisms with systems reduced to remnants, so complexity (which is a challenge to assess) is not the only measure. Primative has definitions that refer to early times, so time is an element. Concise and precise terminology is a challenge here; for example, "fully-formed" could imply adult. The exceptions to the modern interpretation of cell theory create a context.Novangelis (talk) 19:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that using precise terminology is a challenge in this case. It actually seems to be a challenge in this field. Presumably, a less complex primitive lifeform would be able to be produced now using the environment of early earth in which case we would have modern primitive life. I'm not sure if there is that perfect terminology.Jaydstats (talk) 13:09, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

THIS IS NOT CONSEVAPEDIA or a CREATIONWIKI

Reading the section Law of Biogenesis we see the classic creationist and fundamentalist language of "life from non-life". The clarification of spontaneous generation of fully formed life is also gone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.188.116.156 (talk) 16:52, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually... Check this, I agree that it's (both) somewhat a mischaracterization overall, though, I just can't seem to find a source (not that I looked much) that says much more in depth. 68.227.169.133 (talk) 12:49, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

"Omne vivum ex vivo", "omne vivum ex ovo" and "omne ovum ex vivo"

Dear Wikipedia contribuitors,

receive a very respectful greeting. I would like this article to have more information about certain latin phrases associated with the origin of life such as those in the title of this section. I have made a similar request on the article about Abiogenesis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abiogenesis.

Thanks in advance for your help!George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 18:32, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Brett Nortje 07:46 30 August 2011 (GMT+2) If the known periodic table does not produce life, then what on earth could? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brett Nortje (talk • contribs) 05:48, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Christian Schwabe

This has been deleted as "fringe".

Biochemist Christian Schwabe argues that chemistry is the driving force of the assembly of life, he further contends that the process of biogenesis was so fast that less than a billion years after accretion the Earth contained microorganisms, he claims that the Miller experiment has not proven abiogenesis but has proven biogenesis as the molecules which were discovered in the experiment have been found throughout the universe. He further contends that life in the universe has always existed as a manifestation of matter and energy. He also claims that all species on earth have an independent origin from pools of nucleic acids, according to his theory life is widespread throughout the whole universe. Genomic potential hypothesis of evolution: A concept of biogenesis in habitable spaces of the universe, Christian Schwabe, The Anatomical Record, Volume 268, Issue 3, pages 171-179, 1 November 2002 Online PDF Link

But as you can see it has been published in a notable journal. Chemistryfan (talk) 21:41, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

• It's a notable and even very respectable journal, but I'm absolutely flabbergasted that an anatomical journal would publish any article on a subject like this, as it is completely beyond their usual scope. I'm sure that there's a story behind this, perhaps someone can find the sources. --Crusio (talk) 17:14, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The current full title of the journal is "The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology". It had a special issue on astrobiology. This is undue weight to a singular fringe usage of the term "biogenesis" which relies an unaccepted alternate definition of life. The personal rebranding of the molecular origin of life, abiogenesis, as biogenesis by redefining life back to the chemical constituents does not qualify this material for inclusion in this article as that, too, is a fringe position. Most importantly, many of the claims cannot be found in the two sources, one primary.Novangelis (talk) 18:15, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The paper by Schwabe on biogenesis, can be found here Link he argues that the laws of chemistry are universal and that life has always existed in the universe. Chemistryfan (talk) 19:08, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

WHAT LAW???

I notice that the section regarding the law of biogenesis always seems to have the mentions of Creationists removed. The "law of biogenesis" is not recognized. It's an invenstion by creationists so they can then claim evolution violates it. I'm paraphrasing PZ Meyers on that last bit.75.92.195.155 (talk) 19:12, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Is biogenesis a belief or scientific theory?

Is biogenesis a belief or scientific theory? The Pasteur experiments imply the latter. --beefyt (talk) 20:09, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

maybe it would be adequate...

in consideration of the lay public, perhaps it would be commendable for this article to include a brief section that pertains to secondary and tertiary sources that critically analyse the topic (by this I am referring to scientific sources, including but not exclusively journal articles). FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:48, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Opening paragraph statement

The generation of life from non-living material is called abiogenesis, and it has occurred at least once in the history of the Earth, when life first arose

Sophie means wisdom said

do we need to cite statements of the obvious?

How this statement is allowed i dont know, we are talking science here, not what some users may 'believe', to the people who think this has been demonstrated claim your $3,000,000 worth of prizes and cite the relevant literature. Until you find the literature (go to NCBI) i will add 'hypothesized to have occurred'. This is science, NOT OPINION.

http://www.originlife.org/

http://www.us.net/life/

From abiogenesis page (even that has it accurate in that it says 'may' and thats the main page).

In particular, the term usually refers to the processes by which life on Earth may have arisen. I

I have added 'hypothesized to have'.

My name IS NOT jinxmchue either.

Jinx69 (talk) 02:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

And yet, it is by your opinion that you insist on inserting the weasel word phrase of "hypothesized to have".--Mr Fink (talk) 03:50, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Furthermore, Jinx69, you are the one who initiates all of these edit wars, as you're the one who makes edits without trying to achieve consensus from other editors, insert weasel words, and trying to browbeat other editors into accepting your edits without question, all while ignoring everything other editors have to say.--Mr Fink o(talk) 13:03, 10 September 2012 (UTC)ppl

This statement seems to be out of place. This is an article on biogenesis, not abiogenesis. As such I would suggest we leave the sentence at: 'The generation of life from non-living material is called abiogenesis.' Thereby linking to the Abiogenesis page where a person can get the full picture instead of a small piece of information that is not directly related to biogenesis.--YK102 (talk) 21:18, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

AFAIK at the moment, the current sentence ("The generation of life from non-living material is called abiogenesis, and has occurred at least once in the history of the Earth, < ref name="PNAS-20120110">Spiegel, David S.; Turner, Edwin L. (January 10, 2012). "Bayesian analysis of the astrobiological implications of life's early emergence on Earth". PNAS. 109 (2): 395–400. doi:10.1073/pnas.1111694108. Retrieved December 29, 2012.</ref> or in the history of the Universe (see panspermia), when life first arose."), with citation and related relevant wikilinks, seems scientifically sound and acceptable - and entirely appropriate to a scientific article on "Biogenesis" - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 23:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I am desperately trying to understand the kneejerk reaction around an edit concerning whether abiogenesis "has" occurred as opposed to "is speculated to have" occurred. While I am beginning to understand why I was told 3 years ago at the beginning of my Ph.D. program NOT to trust Wikipedia as a credible academic resource, I still thought that the people editing the articles would use some type of credible scientific approach in editing information. The article by Spiegel and Turner (2012) does not "prove" abiogenesis. It is simply a probability model that incorporates speculated data for a probability outcome of life by abiogenesis on earth-like planets, if such a thing occurred on earth. The authors themselves say, "The early emergence of life on Earth has been taken as evidence that the PROBABILITY [emphasis added] of abiogenesis is high, if starting from young Earth-like conditions" (p.395) Lest we assume that they do not in fact mean that abiogenesis on Earth is undisputed, they also add the following, "However, knowledge of the actual origin of life on Earth, to say nothing of other possible ways in which it might originate, is so limited that a more complex model is not yet justified." (p.396) Using this or any research that fails to prove abiogenesis, while it explicitly states it is invoking probability is a breach of scientific integrity. One of the main reasons certain groups of people now doubt our work as researchers and scientists is because of this type of pseudoscience demonstrated by the contributors of Wikipedia that purports to be both scientific and factual, while in reality it is closely linked itself to pure ideology as opposed to empirical evidence. Feel free to change it back from my edit, knowing that I will not only support my most esteemed professors' advice concerning the lack of academic credibility at Wikipedia but will also share my newfound knowledge with colleagues, learners, friends, and any other group of people that I may encounter, which is simply validating the comments made by my professors that the site lacks any real academic credibility. This is quite easy to see as I go back and look at how many times this wording has been changed to satisfy ideology instead of science. Since the authors of the article being cited for proof do indeed state themselves that there is no proof, how can one possibly take this article or any article seriously, for there is apparently a war of ideologies on this website as opposed to actual scientific inquiry. BKH — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.56.188 (talk) 07:18, 28 February 2013 (UTC)