Louis Pasteur on Life

Question from Truk:
Evolution directly contradicts Pasteur’s laws, that state life can only come from life, as well as the laws of thermodynamics. Why does evolution, a flawed theory with more holes in it than a sponge, still stand, when it contradicts proven science?

Answer by SmartLX:
If evolution contradicted proven science, it wouldn’t still stand. That’s the whole point of science: if it’s proven wrong, it changes. The biology departments of the universities of the world don’t have the resources to maintain a massive conspiracy to prop up a bogus theory, but they have the evidence to support a sound one.

Thermodynamics first: you haven’t specified which laws you think evolution contradicts, so I’ll assume you mean the Second Law of Thermodynamics. There are several creationist arguments based on this idea, and I’ve addressed two of them here, here and here. If I haven’t covered your specific objection, comment and tell me what it actually is.

Now for the less run-into-the-ground material. Louis Pasteur only produced one “law”, and even that is only tentatively attributed to him: the Law of Biogenesis, which states that life can only come from other life. Pasteur did make such an observation, whether or not he made it official. The competing hypothesis of the day was spontaneous generation, the idea that life springs from non-life everywhere, all the time. People used to think that a bag of grain would spontaneously generate maggots, for instance. Pasteur examined many apparent examples of this, and in every case discovered that life was somehow getting in from outside and propagating.

Pasteur did not demonstrate, nor could he have, that it’s impossible for life to emerge from non-life in any circumstances. He simply established that it does not happen in everyday life, and that the life all around us is far more connected than people once thought. If genetics had been further along at the time he could have known this for certain, because all known life is genetically related and therefore descended from a single organism, a common ancestor.

This fact has an important implication: all life on earth can be explained by a single ancient event of abiogenesis (literally genesis from non-life). This means it’s to be expected that the circumstances in which abiogenesis can occur are incredibly rare, and might not even exist in the present day. However, given a billion years, half a billion square kilometres of surface area and countless different chemical compounds on this planet, it’s not unreasonable to suppose that the elements of life came together in just the right way, at least once. Living tissue doesn’t contain any element which isn’t also found in non-living material; it is literally made of the things around it.

Abiogenesis isn’t part of the theory of evolution anyway, because that’s only concerned with what life has done since it came about. Even if a god had created the first living thing, evolution could have occurred from then on without the god’s help, producing all the diversity of life from that single organism. This isn’t important to you though, Truk, because you want to establish that at least some part of the process was impossible without divine help, necessitating the existence of the divine. Abiogenesis, while unlikely in any single moment and circumstance, is not so unlikely that it can’t have happened naturally at all, so a god isn’t needed there either. Better keep looking for a spot to force one in.

123 thoughts on “Louis Pasteur on Life”

  1. Joker writes: [And didnt i tell you to research what religious means?

    because i told you that i wouldnt come back until you did anyways….

    So i guess the late response is also your fault.]

    If I may make a suggestion, it might be easier if you tell me which definition you are referring to, so I know how you are defining it. Like most words “religious” can mean any number of things. I’d rather not guess what you intend to mean. It would be more accurate and save time if you let me know the context you hold it in. Thanks.

    1. Like all english words, you know simply by the context that its used in.

      Unless you have no idea what you said

  2. re·li·gious (rĭ-lĭj′əs) adj. 1. Having or showing belief in and reverence for God or a deity.

    You aren’t religious Joker?

    1. Yeah, However i think you may have used that word out of context by that definition with what you said.

      However thats not the point.

      quick things,

      1: Its very late now,… im going to bed

      2: i digress greatly, you would most likely get better, straight forward answers from the site i told you about… its alway a good idea to study on what you are debating, lest someone will call you close-minded.
      Im not saying you have or havent.

      3: i will be busy for quite a few months with christmas coming up, etc. So like i said, any responses, if you get one, may be very late.

  3. Hi People,
    I was just reading and think this would be a good place for an idea for my paper. Does anyone have a good evidence for evolution i can research? I need a counter argument.

    1. Just so people go down the right path to help you out, could you confirm whether you’re looking for counter-arguments against evolution or against creationism? You’ll find both if you use those keywords on this site.

  4. Are you suggesting SmartLx, with this statement, “If evolution contradicted proven science, it wouldn’t still stand.” that the science used by Luis Pasteur and his colleagues, was not a proven science?
    Has evolution or the atheist shown that evolution has happened where all present kinds, classes or types of organisms developed from one common ancestor?

    Where has this been repeated in a laboratory?

    I’m asking for life from nothing or from inanimate matter, to that first life and then from that first life to the first evolved organism. Where has this been demonstrated?

    Why the evolutionists can not at all show any kind of actual evolutionary step from any of the kinds, classes, or types of organisms to another.

    There are suggestions sure, but all are still built upon hearsay. “We think; we believe; maybe; it could have been; and other phrases such as these which are the only words that are true concerning the hypothesis of evolution.

    And the only reason why all of life is genetically related is because there is no other way to construct life other than DNA.

    But to say that because all of life is made up of DNA, that one was evolved from the other, is like saying that because a star is made of atoms that it is related to a bacteria.

    It is how they both were constructed. What made them what they are? And the evolutionists have failed miserably to show that there are common ancestors. Unless that common Ancestor is the Creator God.

    1. Leaving aside that evolution and abiogenesis are two different things, you don’t seem to understand the meaning of the word “contradict”, Gerald. The fact that abiogenesis has not been replicated would only contradict the hypothesis of the natural origin of life if abiogenesis were proven impossible. Otherwise it merely does not have this particular support.

      Much of what you’re saying here is repeating yourself, but I will say that common descent has more support than the mere fact that all life has DNA; all life shares a significant percentage of the same specific DNA coding, where any number of variants would have sufficed instead. We have more than 60% overlap with bananas, for instance.

      1. SmatLx. And I would point out to you that if you expect everyone to drop all other beliefs and hug evolution, just because it has not been around enough time to prove it is possible, then why wouldn’t everyone accept God as true.

        The atheists, want everyone to believe that more, and more time will make what is seemingly impossible, what apparently not able to happen today, will be more and more possible as more and more time passes. As if more and more time had some kind of mechanism inside it that changes the laws, that are held, and suddenly, although very briefly, the impossible becomes possible but then that law changes and the reverts back to be what is commonly accepted as impossible.

        What then is the use for science? If any child can at a whim decide the change the rules of the game to suit their favor.

        And this is what has been allowed to happen with evolution. Although it breaks know, accepted laws the evolutionists, declare that it hasn’t really been invalidated, because all of time has not been questioned, as witnesses, and when the minuscule part of time arrives, it will give a different testimony, and it will show that evolution is indeed god, itself, and able to do anything.

        You really are not able to fathom, the way you are willing to ignore out and out evidence just to not have to admit that the hypothesis of evolution is just not possible.

        You see that life has been the only manner in which life has been reproduced. You know that life just could not have always been. You see that life has not been observed from non life. or from nothing.

        You see that each and every kind, type or class of organism has been the only means from which that same kind, class or type of organism has ever come from.

        You see how evolution has always been shown to contradict what is happening, and what has been happening for thousands of years and yet you still want to say that it doesn’t matter. That’s because at some time, (I don’t know when), everything was different then it is today.

        And this is just another unsupported hypothesis. “that every thing used to be different”.

        SmartLx says “Much of what you’re saying here is repeating yourself, but I will say that common descent has more support than the mere fact that all life has DNA; all life shares a significant percentage of the same specific DNA coding, where any number of variants would have sufficed instead. We have more than 60% overlap with bananas, for instance.”

        What is repeated does not make it not true. “It bears repeating”. What is repeated can be true. And needs to be repeated so that or until everyone who wishes can see or understand that it needs to be understood.
        And just like the pattern of how life has become, and how life has been reproducing is a pattern that the atheists want to, slip under the rug. They want to throw out a smoke bomb. They want to to do a slight of hand and distract everyone’s attention, away from the fact that evolution has nothing that can be touched, tasted, or seen to be valid without someone else explaining what they should be seeing, tasting or touching.

        What you said about DNA is your hypothesis. That because there are similarities in the DNA pattern, because there are similarities, in physical appearances, that what ever someone is comparing, means that they are descendants.

        You make this hypothesis and once again fail to support it with any kind of evidence. Like manipulating the DNA of one organism and making it reproduce a completely different organism unlike it.
        DNA is the building block, the material to use to construct. And in each kind, type or class of organism, there is a programming directing it what to be. It is not an random, do anything you want kind of programming. It is a specific programming for each and every kind, type or class of organism. There is even a backup system that removes most damaged pieces of that programming and replaces it with what is supposed to be while that formation is in process.
        All of this programming, confirms the fact that life does not happen on its own. It has been programmed to be what ever life it is. And within that programming is a programming that permits, changes of sizes, shapes, and color, for each of those kinds, classes, or types of organisms but not permit it to break the mold for what they were programmed to be. And with this programming is how they are to function to fulfill their role to aid the health of this planet.

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