Re: Revealing thought experiment

On 07/02/2025 22:02, MarkE wrote:

Does the following quotation demonstrate that the naturalistic origin of life involves amplifying a vanishingly small probability (i.e. the probability of spontaneous generation in a jar, with small probabilistic resources of space and time available), to a larger probability (i.e. the universe over its entire history)?
 That is, does it demonstrate that the naturalistic origin of life is spontaneous generation, only with more time and space than Redi and Pasteur allowed?

Only if you ignore the conceptual differences between spontaneous generation and spontaneous abiogenesis. What it does reveal is how modern views are contaminating contemporary understanding of spontaneous generation. It also reveals that an understanding that intuition is a poor guide to processes occurring on spatial and temporal scales far removed from everyday experience is more widespread than I feared.

 ______
  "At this point, I introduced Louis Pasteur’s pasteurization experiment, which convinced the world that even microorganisms could not be generated spontaneously.
 And all students agreed on that conclusion. The following text is a record of my conversation with my students afterward.
 Tan. Are you confident that the experiments by Redi and Pasteur have proved that spontaneous generation is impossible?
 Students. Yes.
 Tan. Sure?
 Students. Yes.
 Tan. Does it matter what sizes the jars/bottles were?
 Students. No.
 Tan. Does it matter how long they waited?
 Students. No.
 Tan. Sure?
 Students. Yes.
 Tan. What if the bottles are very big? I mean very big, really big. Still positive?
 Students. Yes.
 Tan. How about this big? (A picture of the globe was shown.) Still positive?
 Students. Uh… (Some hesitated.)
 Tan. How about this big? (A picture of the visible universe of the Hubble deep field was shown.) Still positive?
 Students. (Silence.)
 How about you?"
  Tan, Change; Stadler, Rob. The Stairway To Life: An Origin-Of-Life Reality Check (pp. 179-180). Evorevo Books. Kindle Edition.
 

--
alias Ernest Major