Re: Revealing thought experiment

On Mon, 10 Feb 2025 09:53:18 +0000, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Ernest Major
<{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk>:

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.

 

Conflating "classical" spontaneous generation with
abiogenesis indicates that those who do so understand
neither.

______
 
 
"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.
 

--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
 the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov