Feedback for February 2002

I have no idea what you mean by tar or something else. That is simply bizarre.

One famous hoax early last century was constructed from an orangutang jaw with a human skull. This is the Piltdown hoax, discussed at length in our FAQ on the subject.

Do look through the Hominids FAQ for the large range of transitional fossil remains available. Not even the most lunatic of creationists has ever suggested that these are constructed by combining fossils of monkeys and humans. Until now, of course.

Hammer, Whitfield and Goodfellow are researchers who have examined the Y-chromosome to try and find the most recent common ancestor of all living humans by patrilineal descent.

This is not the same as the first man, by the way. If the biblical stories are taken as a literal history, then Noah would be the most recent common ancestor by patrilineal descent; not Adam. Unfortunately, this error is fostered by catchy but misleading headlines about Y-chromosome Adam.

Useful background to the notion of most recent common ancestor of all currently living humans by matrilineal descent, and by patrilineal descent, can be found in the archive, in the article What, if anything, is a Mitochondrial Eve?

Hammer wrote an article in Nature, entitled A recent common ancestry for human Y chromosomes (Nature 1995 Nov 23;378(6555):376-8), in which he proposes a date for this individual as about 188,000 years ago. This is a very rough guess. He quotes a 95% confidence interval of 51,000 to 411,000 years.

In the same issue, Whitfield, Sulston and Goodfellow, in an independent study entitled Sequence variation of the human Y chromosome (Nature 1995 Nov 23;378(6555):379-80), proposed a time of 31,000 to 49,000 years; which is significantly more recent. (Though still nowhere near the timelines associated with Noah.)

A far more comprehensive study was completed recently, and published last year as African Origin of Modern Humans in East Asia: A Tale of 12,000 Y Chromosomes (Science, May 11 2001, Vol 292, pp1151-1152). This was based on a collaboration of by many scientists in Asia, the UK and the USA, and suggests a date to the most recent common patrilineal ancestor of 35,000 to 89,000 years (95% confidence limits).

However, for scientists the actual date is very much a side issue. The real interest is to test two competing models for recent human evolution: the Out of Africa model and the multiregional model. Generally, the results of Y-chromosome studies have been taken as powerful support of the Out of Africa model. These results certainly present no problem whatsoever for common ancestry with apes; that is a gross failure of comprehension.

I recommend this comprehensive set of links on Y-chromosome studies (off-site) for those who want to explore this subject further. [Link replaces a defunct john.hynes.net link.]

And for a quick background report in the popular press, see Boost for 'Out of Africa' theory, courtesy of the BBC.

We aim to give the best guide possible for those wanting to explore the controversy, and we delve into as many arguments as we can find. We certainly do explore the creationist side, in as much detail as possible, and we show it to be riddled with errors. We continue to seek out and explore new aspects of the debate as they arise.

If you want to explore on your own, help yourself to the links page.

The "Darwin recanted on his deathbed" story is very popular in antievolution circles. That does not make it true. Nor does mere repetition make the myth any less false.

See our page on this issue, The Lady Hope Story: A Widespread Falsehood. Further, even antievolution sources have deprecated the spread of this myth. "Answers in Genesis" has a page, Did Darwin recant?, which concludes that Darwin did not recant.

It appears that what the reader has discovered is that we identify a lot of errors in antievolution argumentation rather than that we make a lot of errors ourselves. Yes, this archive does identify "very many errors" in antievolution arguments; the reader is perfectly correct on that view.

Wesley

It would be wrong to infer from this list that all creationists have suspicious credentials. In fact, a good number of prominent creationists have legitimate -- even noteworthy -- doctoral degrees in scientific fields. For example, Duane Gish earned a doctorate in biochemistry from Berkeley, Steve Austin earned a doctorate in geology from Pennsylvania State University, and Kurt Wise earned his doctorate in paleontology from Harvard while studying under Stephen Jay Gould. So just because a few well-known creationists failed to earn their graduate degrees the traditional way does not mean that all or even most of them did.

What Korthof says on his website is something that is, I think, different from what you think he is saying. He says:

Of course macroevolution cannot be directly observed. These quotes should be sufficient to show that macro-evolution cannot be a fact in the sense that a solar eclipse is an observable fact. However micro-evolution is an observable fact.

. . . .

The above quotes show also that we cannot have complete knowledge of the historical path of evolution. For the same reason we can neither have complete knowledge of the mechanisms that caused evolution in the past. Please note that I do not say that micro and macro-evolution are inaccessible to scientific research. I do not say that scientists cannot collect indirect evidence of macro-evolution. However I do say that there is inevitably uncertainty about the path (macro-)evolution followed, because of evolution's essentially historical character alone.

He is not saying that evolution didn't happen. What he is saying is that we will probably never know everything about its course on the planet Earth, given that information about its twists and turns has been lost through the passage of time.

See the Evolution is a Fact and a Theory article for a more complete discussion.

There were eight messages like the above entered within a span of six minutes under as many different names.

The reader may not like our site, and may think we are all idiots, but that does not mean that we won't notice abuses of the feedback system.

I'd suggest that our reader try expressing these feelings over on the talk.origins newsgroup.

Wesley

However, other myths are not usually set up as alternatives to science, and so there is no particular controversy there analogous to the one associated with the biblical stories. The flood stories have more relevance, since if the biblical flood account is historical, we should expect a version to be preserved in all cultures. The examination of disparate myths is an aid to readers interesting in exploring this hypothesis.

I would also like to comment on the matter of bias and agenda. Of course, we should all keep an open mind, but that is not the same as an empty mind. Science has reached some definite conclusions about the world. It is not the case that all ideas are equal, scientifically. Some are simply wrong, and a large part of the scientific method is about testing ideas to see which ones hold up in the face of evidence. Those which don't hold up are discarded.

We have an agenda and a bias all right! This site is an educational resource for those wanting to explore the creationism/evolution controversy, which centers on the stories recorded in the bible.

The exploration is not an unguided ramble by those who have no idea how to get out of the mire. It is a specific examination, in as much detail as we can manage, of the terrain from the perspective that we consider gives the truest insight into the lie of the land; and we consider that to be the perspective of mainstream science, unambiguously, and unapologetically. This is not merely a preconceived bias. It is a conclusion based on a fair examination of all sides. Note that fairness is not the same as never reaching a conclusion.

Sure, we have a lot of information. Heaps of it. This is a big site, and we are still adding to it. The site gives a guide to the evolution/creationism controversy from the perspective of mainstream science, which we consider to be by far the most reliable guide for those wishing to explore the matter. We show exactly what is wrong with many creationist arguments.

Which ones? As many as we can get! What happens, for the most part, is that individuals select those issues which match their area of expertise, and for which they see a need, and then put some time and effort into writing a FAQ to address them. The results are reviewed in the talk.origins newgroup, then revised to take account of constructive criticisms, and if of a suitable quality they are placed in the archive. There is at least one new FAQ in preparation as we speak.

The site also has a Request for FAQs, listing areas for which we would like more FAQs, and with a pointer to submission guidelines.

How you infer cowardice or hypocrisy is beyond me; but I'll take a wild guess that you do not similarly label creationist sites. If so, then you are being hypocritical.

Five very similar posts in as many minutes, though with different names entered. It looks like the same disgruntled reader as before took a little time out to drop a few more comments on the feedback system.

There does appear to be some improvement, though. The reader has apparently discovered the location and significance of the CAPS LOCK key.

I think it will be pretty easy to tell if the reader really does move on to other parts of the Internet by whether such cascades of responses appear again in our feedback system.

Wesley

The reliability of ice core dating is attested by the agreement of several different methods of determining ages from the ice cores, including checks with volcanic eruptions at known dates. See the Ice Core Dating FAQ for more details. (Incidentally, it presents data of an ice core covering 160,000 years.)

I would suggest you don't worry too much about people who are objecting to Darwin's theory for the moment, and focus on some background information.

In the archive, we have an Introduction to Evolutionary Biology. Another excellent off-site resource is Evolution, Science and Society, describing the field of evolutionary biology, its challenges and opportunities. You can read their Executive Summary, or the longer Executive Document. I have given links to pdf files, and there are also html versions available from the home page.

All these introductions deal with evolution as a modern science, which has progressed considerably since the foundations laid by Charles Darwin.

As for that "absolutely not what the bible says", please check and see if this passage is in your copy:

Matthew 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’ "

But it seems that whether I'm right or you are right, my orginal correspondent is still wrong.

Wesley

Yawn. Walt Brown's "challenge" is old news, which likely explains why nobody has bothered with your prior messages. If you had used the search facility here, you would have seen relevant information in the May 1997 Feedback, the January 2001 Feedback, the September 1998 Feedback, and the November 1996 Feedback. The link to Dr. Brown's site and debate challenge have been given exposure here in the past.

Other information on Walt Brown is at this archive as well, Lucy's Knee Joint Letter from Walter Brown and How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?. That last references an actual written debate that Brown had with Jim Lippard, published in Creation/Evolution back in 1990. Does Brown discuss that?

This archive has had a link to Dr. Brown's website up at least since 1996. Does Dr. Brown link back to us, or any mainstream science site?

Wesley

This website isn't produced to "deny God and the bible". See the God and Evolution FAQ.

I'd rather believe that the events of September 11, 2001 weren't real. I'd rather believe that no one could countenance genocide. I'd rather believe that the Inquisition hadn't happened.

Drat. That doesn't seem to change the evidence, does it?

Wesley

On the other hand, skulls 10,000 years ago are apparently not quite identical to modern skulls. According to the FAQ, Hominid Species, there are trends towards smaller molars and decreased robustness which can be seen even as recently as 10,000 years ago. Look right to end of the FAQ, for the section on Homo sapiens sapiens (modern).

The content of evolutionary biology is sensitive to the state of evidence. A brief examination of Peter Bowler's "Evolution: The History of an Idea" will confirm that there have been many theories proposed within evolutionary biology which have been overturned by the evidence.

The content of theological creation doctrines is not, however, sensitive to the state of the evidence. There need be no evidential support for any particular doctrine of creation, and in fact a doctrine of creation may have much countervailing evidence, as we see in the case of young-earth creationism.

Finding out more about biology is part of science. We do this not just for sport or recreation. We do it to make a difference in our own lives. By understanding how biological systems change over time we are able to make better decisions in medicine and agriculture, among other things.

I'm all for letting people believe what they want to believe, conditioned upon teaching science in science classrooms, and leaving non-science outside those classrooms. If somebody wants to believe in counterfactual conjectures, I personally have no big problem with that, so long as they don't insist that their particular brand of ignorance be taught as if it were science in a science classroom.

Wesley

One very active creationist group, Answers in Genesis, has a large number of files on such issues. In particular, they have a FAQ entitled Diseases on the Ark (off-site -- obviously), which deals with this issue.

They do accept evolution on sufficiently small scales, and allow this to a factor. With respect to HIV, they also speculate about carriage of the disease in monkeys, and in a small naturally resistent population of humans.

I would not call Answers in Genesis open minded by any means; nor will I attempt a reply to the above FAQ. Think of it as a homework exercise for our readers.

A spectacular example is Mt Everest. The summit of Mt Everest is mostly limestone, with many deep sea fossils. Everest is quite a young mountain, and still growing. It is formed from an ancient sea floor, which is being uplifted as the subcontinent of India collides with the rest of Asia.

Marine fossils on mountains is also an interesting example for historical reasons, because it is one of the first lines of evidence recognized as a disproof of the global flood. Leonardo da Vinci was a keen observer of fossils, who first recognized the impossibility of marine fossils on mountains being debris from a flood. I quote here one paragraph from an article about Leonardo at the University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology.

In Leonardo's day there were several hypotheses of how it was that shells and other living creatures were found in rocks on the tops of mountans. Some believed the shells to have been carried there by the Biblical Flood; others thought that these shells had grown in the rocks. Leonardo had no patience with either hypothesis, and refuted both using his careful observations. Concerning the second hypothesis, he wrote that "such an opinion cannot exist in a brain of much reason; because here are the years of their growth, numbered on their shells, and there are large and small ones to be seen which could not have grown without food, and could not have fed without motion -- and here they could not move." There was every sign that these shells had once been living organisms. What about the Great Flood mentioned in the Bible? Leonardo doubted the existence of a single worldwide flood, noting that there would have been no place for the water to go when it receded. He also noted that "if the shells had been carried by the muddy deluge they would have been mixed up, and separated from each other amidst the mud, and not in regular steps and layers -- as we see them now in our time." He noted that rain falling on mountains rushed downhill, not uphill, and suggested that any Great Flood would have carried fossils away from the land, not towards it. He described sessile fossils such as oysters and corals, and considered it impossible that one flood could have carried them 300 miles inland, or that they could have crawled 300 miles in the forty days and nights of the Biblical flood.

We have a split amongst our respondents here on this point. Some of us, including myself, agree with you that "creationist" is a broad term that can include people who accept the findings of biological science. Others seem to feel that "creationist" is equivalent to "anti-evolutionist". I'm not sure that agreement on this is going to come anytime soon.

You may note that within the "jargon" file here, I've given the broad construal of "creationist" pride of place.

But I'm not sure that I can agree that "creationist" should not be used to describe the young-earth, old earth, and intelligent design anti-evolutionists. These people almost without exception come to their anti-evolution stance by way of their religious commitments, and the relevant commitment there is to a particular doctrine of creation which they feel is incompatible with the findings of evolutionary biology.

Wesley

As one can see from pictures, the earth has no "end" and thus your question is irrelevant!

I can anticipate your next questions: 1) How can satellites "orbit" a flat earth and how, for that matter, can a flat earth "orbit" the sun? The answer is simple, everything in space is carried on the backs of turtles.

2) And what are these turtles standing upon? The answer to that is equally simple: It's turtles all the way down!

see: The Discworld Books: It's a series, not a serial. Even so... and Turtles All the Way Down

And... site under construction: Turtles All the Way

- Sno'nuff (played by Julius J. Carry III, in Berry Gordy's, "The Last Dragon". 1985 TriStar Pictures)

The jivest little ninja - sho'nuff!

However, many postmodernists and structuralists think that the author doesn't matter anyway.

If you want a single example of hydrogen turning into a human being, I offer myself as an instance. I am the result of hydrogen being transformed in a supernova into many elements, some of which ended up on a small planet and which, according to the laws of chemsitry (as yet not entirel y understood) turned into a sequence of living organisms that interacted with many other organisms and the environment to produce me.

I do hope that you are now convinced that evolution is not bogus :-)

Quoting from the FAQ:

9) Where are the corners of the Earth?

Opinion is still divided on this issue. Conventional wisdom places the five corners at the following locations:

• Corner 1: the northernmost extent of Lake Mikhayl in Tunguska, Siberia
• Corner 2: Greenland or Iceland (Ultima Thule); though some researchers place it at Brimstone Head, on Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada.
• Corner 3: Easter Island.
• Corner 4: Uncertain; possibly Hokkaido (Japan), Lhasa (Nepal), or a desolate location in Outer Mongolia.
• Corner 5: Somewhere near the south of Tasmania or New Zealand, though some researchers have suggested somewhere in the vicinity of the South Pacific island of Ponape.

:-)

That statement is exactly backwards. The formation of ice (and snowflakes) from water or steam results in a decrease in the entropy of the H2O molecules. When frozen into ice, the water molecules become locked into a crystal lattice, a state that is far less random and has fewer degrees of freedom than molecules in gaseous or liquid states. The freezing of liquid water into ice results in a net decrease in standard entropy of about 22 J/K/mole (at zero degrees Celsius).

About definitions of open and closed systems: Your discussion partner is again incorrect and should consult the thermodynamics chapter of any decent chemistry textbook (or perhaps your chemistry teacher).

An open system is one in which matter or energy can travel in or out.

A closed system is one in which neither matter nor energy cross system boundaries. It has no interaction with anything outside it. An isolated system is no different from a closed system.

The Earth is definitely not a closed system. The NSF, SSEC & CIMMSS have never said that the Earth is a closed system with respect to energy or matter fluxes. It's possible that your friend is confusing "closed" with "steady-state". The Earth may be close to a steady-state with regard to energy input and output but that's a completely different matter from whether it is a closed system.

About plants drowning in their wastes after 2.5 billion years: Sealed terrariums provide a pretty good counter-demonstration. Plants have never existed alone on the Earth. There are also bacteria and fungi present that destroy the waste and convert the biomass to a form which plants can reuse.

About there being too little remaining energy to fuel evolution: An interesting fantasy. If you have enough spare energy to play Nintendo and occasionally take out the trash, you've got more than enough energy to evolve. Mutations figure very little in the overall energy economy of the cell.

The three options for the origin of the universe are (1) it had no beginning; (2) it arose spontaneously; or (3) something unknown (not necessarily intelligent and not necessarily beyond our ability to comprehend) is responsible for it. But #3 begs the question of where the 'something' came from. At this time, the best answer is nobody knows how our universe originated, although evidence does indicate that it had a beginning.

I am afraid I don't what resources to recommend for the best introduction to the inflationary model of the Big Bang. I suggest you browse the astronomy or physics section at a local bookstore or library. (A university bookstore would probably be your best bet.)

The odds of DNA or enzymes arising by chance are irrelevant, because evolutionary theory does not and never did say they arose by chance.

For "successful mutations," please see Are Mutations Harmful? Pay particular attention to the appendices.

You are meant to read the whole FAQ, not just one little quote.

And when you read a quote, you also read the whole thing.

The full quote as given in the FAQ is as follows. I have emphasized in bold type the sentence immediately preceding the fragment you have quoted.

"In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions."

- Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986

Someone is certainly muddying the water, and it is not the FAQ.

We have a new FAQ in preparation, which should be coming on-line shortly, on the subject of Quotations and Misquotations.

Biological evolution, for example, deals with how living organisms arise from other different living organisms.

Scientific hypotheses for the origins of life, although not technically a part of evolutionary biology, are concerned with the origins and development of chemical replicators from pre-biotic chemistry.

Models for the origin of the Earth are concerned with how a cloud of interstellar gas would coalesce into a star, and the formation of planets from a disk of dust and gas.

Scientific models for the origins of the universe itself deal with the development of space and time and matter from conditions of extraordinary heat and density.

We really don't know much about the universe before that.

Just like you and I, the universe, or the world, has a history. It has developed and changed over time. Evolution is a study specifically of the history of life, and the processes by which life changes over time. It is not about things coming out of nothing; just the opposite, in fact.

I recommend to you our FAQ What is Evolution.

Also, I strongly recommend you look at the FAQ Welcome to talk.origins. This is actually about how to get the most constructive involvement in the Usenet group, but the same principles apply for constructive dialog in the web as well. Also very helpful is the following page on appropriate netiequette.

OK, I don't want to quibble about "grace". I'll retract the previous statement and assert this one instead: One doesn't have to attribute guilt to accept the position that all have sinned and require salvation. Hopefully, I've avoided the theological jargon landmines this time.

Anti-evolutionists often do things other than ramble. They misrepresent prior argumentation, utilize bait-and-switch tactics, and make citations that are irrelevant to the point.

I have never argued, as Ken implies above, that the need for Christ's sacrifice was "an afterthought". Anyone can confirm that no such argument on my part is present in the January feedback. I have attempted to respond to Ken's original statement, which is different than what he implies I differed from:

A clear foundation of the Christian faith is that the first man, Adam, was created perfect, sinned, and led all humans after him into a condition of separation from our Creator.

So Ken's original argument was about the literalness of Adam, and the argument he refers to in this feedback is the much broader issue of the necessity of salvation. That seems to me to be a clear case of bait-and-switch. I'm responding now, as I was then, to the point of whether a literal Adam need be considered necessary to Christian belief.

I'll note that the "scriptural support" Ken cites often seems to stray from the topic of a literal Adam.

Isaiah 53 is not about a literal Adam. In fact, Isaiah 53:6 appears to be counter to Ken's original argument, as it says that all have gone astray.

Hebrews 10 is not about a literal Adam.

Revelation 7:9-14 is not about a literal Adam.

1 John 2:2 is not about a literal Adam.

It is an interpretation of scripture that would make a literal Adam a necessity for Christian belief. Not everyone agrees with that interpretation, nor even with according it status as a more minor doctrine. It is historically rather recent. The earliest reference that the Catholic church cites is about 100 AD. It wasn't widely adopted until after St. Augustine's exposition of it some three centuries later. That certain other scriptures that Ken cites have been interpreted as a basis for the concept of 'original sin' (whether one applies the name or just assimilates the concept) is stipulated, but it is not stipulated that the interpretation necessarily follows.

If Ken wishes to respond, I suggest taking it to the talk.origins newsgroup. This feedback area is not intended for extended back-and-forth.

Wesley

Any influence Islamic scientists had on Darwin were very indirect. It is possible that Islamic thinkers developed a form of evolutionary theory, although I very much doubt it resembled Darwinian evolution much, rather more like the Great Chain of Being notions that both western and middle eastern traditions inherited from the neo-Platonists. However, there is no record of which I am aware that these ideas made their way to Darwin or anyone who influenced him.

Merely because an idea resembles a later idea is no reason to think that there is a causal connection - such influences have to be demonstrated. History of ideas is not the history of disembodies entities. Al-Jahiz and ibn-Miskawaih would have to be shown to have been read by Darwin. We know quite a bit about what he read, and no such references have come to my attention.

The rounded shape of the earth was worked out in Greek culture. There were cases of Greek scholars who were run out of town for saying things considered to be ridiculous by the general population, but this was well before Christianity, and has nothing to do with the bible.

By the time and culture in which the new testament was written, the spherical shape of the earth was well known and accepted to scholars, and it was not an issue for the very earliest church.

In the first centuries of the organized church, the shape of the earth did become a minor issue, on which opinion was divided. There was no real persecution, however, and for the most part the round shape of the earth was accepted, with flat earth advocates becoming more and more isolated and idiosyncratic. It was a non-issue after about 540 AD.

The popular modern myth of flat earth beliefs in the time of Columbus is just that: a myth. We ought to have a FAQ on this subject, as it comes up quite a lot. In the meantime, one place to look at the subject is The Myth of the Flat Earth. Note that in this page myth refers to the myth that flat earth beliefs were at all common in the middle ages.

Redi in 1668 showed that insects developed from fertilised eggs, not spontaneously, as the folk biology of the day held. Spallanzani showed that maggots would not form in rotting meat unless flies were permitted to lay eggs on it.

This is hardly what the theory of abiogenesis (life from non-life) requires. On the very much outdated view of Lamarck, each species is the evolution (in the sense of development) of a spontaneously generated germ through a predtermined sequence. Hence, spontaneous generation was supposed to occur all the time.

Darwin supposed in correspondence that there was only one abiogenetic event, and that subsequent possible events would quickly fall prey to already alive organisms. But in his publications he allowed that there may have been a few original organismic forms.

But just about the time he supposed that, Pasteur was showing that spontaneous generation even of microbes did not occur, with the famous long necked flask experiment. That was more of a problem for Darwin, and he never followed up his initial speculations.

But what was it that Pasteur showed? At most he showed that in that sterile broth under those conditions, life would not spontaneously originate. But under modern theories, nobody supposes that this is how life did begin. Modern theories involve a vastly different range of chemicals and conditions to Pasteur's broth. In fact, Pasteur was making a medical point - that bacteria are passed on in the proper conditions rather than forming on the spot, spontaneously. This meant that infection coul eb controlled through the use of sterile handling and antiseptics, saving the lives of millions.

What he did not show was that life canot form in a volcanic vent or a "warm pond" of salts and other pre-organic molecules.

Likewise Virchow's principle - the great founder of pathology showed that every modern cell (e.g., in human development of tissues from what we now call "stem cells") develops from the multiplication of pre-existing cells. In 1855, this was news - tissues were previously thought to generate under the right conditions spontaneously. His principle was "...no development of any kind begins de novo, and consequently [one must] reject the theory of [spontaneous] generation just as much in the history of the development of individual parts as we do that of entire organisms" (quoted in Mayr's The Growth of Biological Thought, p65).

So, we have the principle that insects grow from eggs, that maggots form from eggs, that infections occur from bacteria that are transmitted to a food medium and that when organisms develop their cells form from existing cells. None of this relates to the issue of abiogenesis! This is the classical creationist trick of citing things selectively on the basis of some vague resemblance to a previously determined conclusion.

Modern views of abiogenesis, a term that was coined by that arch evolutionist T.H. Huxley, involve the generation of very simple structures, far less complex than a modern cell. These would be able to do little more than convert chemicals and energy into copying themselves. But once that step was achieved, ecological diversification would shortly result in evolution as we know it.