Willamena
07-10-2005, 16:47
Until about 2 centuries ago, spontaneous generation was an accepted theory (see below). It got me to wondering, what would the evolution debate be like today if it were the evolution/spontaneous generation debate? What sort of arguments would arise to support spontaneous generation as a 'scientific theory'? What attempts would be made to discredit evolution on these grounds?
Aristotelian abiogenesis, also known as spontaneous generation, (and, in older texts, Generatio aequivoca, Generatio primaria, archegenesis, autogenesis, and archebiosis), was the theory according to which fully formed living organisms sometimes arise from not-living matter. Aristotle explicitly taught this form of abiogenesis, and laid it down as an observed fact that some animals spring from putrid matter, that plant lice arise from the dew which falls on plants, that fleas are developed from putrid matter, that mice come from dirty hay, and so forth. Alexander Ross, in commenting on Sir Thomas Browne's doubt as to "whether mice may be bred by putrefaction", gives a clear statement of the common opinion on abiogenesis held until about two centuries ago.
So may he (Sir Thomas Browne) doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated; or if beetles and wasps in cows' dung; or if butterflies, locusts, grasshoppers, shell-fish, snails, eels, and such like, be procreated of putrefied matter, which is apt to receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense and experience. If he doubts of this let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice, begot of the mud of Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants.
Aristotelian abiogenesis, also known as spontaneous generation, (and, in older texts, Generatio aequivoca, Generatio primaria, archegenesis, autogenesis, and archebiosis), was the theory according to which fully formed living organisms sometimes arise from not-living matter. Aristotle explicitly taught this form of abiogenesis, and laid it down as an observed fact that some animals spring from putrid matter, that plant lice arise from the dew which falls on plants, that fleas are developed from putrid matter, that mice come from dirty hay, and so forth. Alexander Ross, in commenting on Sir Thomas Browne's doubt as to "whether mice may be bred by putrefaction", gives a clear statement of the common opinion on abiogenesis held until about two centuries ago.
So may he (Sir Thomas Browne) doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated; or if beetles and wasps in cows' dung; or if butterflies, locusts, grasshoppers, shell-fish, snails, eels, and such like, be procreated of putrefied matter, which is apt to receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense and experience. If he doubts of this let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice, begot of the mud of Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants.