Pasteur Contra Nonsense

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Dogbrain
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21 Aug 2008, 7:59 pm

skafather84 wrote:

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

skafather84 wrote:

i'm confused as to how one could demand a certain set of ingredients before they even had any idea about the roots of life?

Please, point out what you are referring to.

"According to the terms of
M. Pasteur's challenge, Dr. Bastian must
obtain, in the presence of competent judges,
bacteria in sterile urine on the addition of liquor
potassse in suitable quantities, the liquor
potassae being prepared from pure potash
with pure water ; or, if made from impure
materials, it must be submitted to a temperature
of 230 for twenty minutes."

but now i realize this was done back in 1877. not quite as clear of a picture of back then as we have now (i mean just the number of missing links found in evolutionary studies alone rather less actual studies of the origin of life). i thought this was stipulations that were going to be followed today in 2008. big difference.

Speaking as a biologist, their specifications make perfect sense today. What Pasteur is demanding is that the advocate of spontaneous generation start out with sterile urine that has been supplemented with sterile potassium salts. This would be a quite adequate bacterial medium. Then, the spontaneous generation advocate would presumably keep it in a sterile sealed container for a specified amount of time to see if bacteria spontaneously appeared. They won't of course.

Sand
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22 Aug 2008, 1:10 am

There is, in the presentation of the concept that life would not arise spontaneously from sterile urine, somehow the idea that life would not arise spontaneously under any circumstances. That is obviously not proved.

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22 Aug 2008, 1:18 am

Sand wrote:

Of course not, and can't be proven because you can't prove a negative. But Pasteur's work did much to put spontaneous generation out of mainstream science. Biogenesis has been the accepted theory for over a century now. Problem is, that runs into the regress argument. Where did the first life come from, if life does not form spontaneously? Modern science still does not have anything really approaching an answer to this.

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Sand
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22 Aug 2008, 1:39 am

Since there is no doubt that life exists and that it consists of ordinary materials found on Earth interacting in a special way it remains only to discover under what conditions those ordinary materials underwent to generate life. There are many logical theories as to how this came about and biologists are beginning to be able to reproduce those conditions although life has not yet successfully been created. It seems to be only a matter of time and a bit more exploration. Illogical theories are not necessary.

peebo
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22 Aug 2008, 3:22 am

i read an interesting thing regarding pasteur a while ago. i am far from an expert in these matters, so perhaps someone more knowledgeable about it can dissect this and point out any flaws or inconsistencies therein..

http://www.whale.to/a/b/pearson.html

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Sand
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22 Aug 2008, 3:50 am

The transmission of diseases by infection is so thoroughly proved by many means and by cures that eliminate the infections that denial of the theory is in the same class of human fantasy as flat Earth theory or crystal globe scanning. That environmental factors are involved in promoting or discouraging infection is not questioned but both bacteria and viruses are thoroughly and completely established as the factors in infectious diseases.

iamnotaparakeet
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22 Aug 2008, 11:27 am

Thanks guys for keeping the tone friendly.

corroonb
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22 Aug 2008, 12:06 pm

Quote:

Even now, three hundred years after the beginning of the Enlightenment, there are still a significant number of people who fail to understand that science progresses by experiment, not appeal to authority...

I agree.

This frankly baffles me. People have no excuse for such ignorance today.

iamnotaparakeet
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22 Aug 2008, 12:23 pm

"Men have sought to make a world from their own conception and to draw from their own minds all the material which they employed, but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experience and observation, they would have the facts and not opinions to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived at the knowledge of the laws which govern the material world."

-Francis Bacon

Dogbrain
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22 Aug 2008, 12:57 pm

How many degrees of Bacon are between Francis and Kevin?

skafather84
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22 Aug 2008, 1:30 pm

Dogbrain wrote:

skafather84 wrote:

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

skafather84 wrote:

i'm confused as to how one could demand a certain set of ingredients before they even had any idea about the roots of life?

Please, point out what you are referring to.

yeah...but what is that relative to? is this just trying to imply that life had to have been created by a supreme being? if so, there needs to be a lot more involved than just piss and some potassium salts (a source of carbon, for example).

it sounds like the kind of test to test the myth around that time period that flys magically appeared when meat rotted or something more along those lines...not a way of proving that spontaneous life can't form at all.

Dogbrain
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22 Aug 2008, 1:51 pm

skafather84 wrote:

No, not at all. Learn some history.

Quote:

it sounds like the kind of test to test the myth around that time period that flys magically appeared when meat rotted or something more along those lines...not a way of proving that spontaneous life can't form at all.

That is exactly what it was, as anyone who knows anything about Pasteur's work would already know. Time was, in any school that wasn't a total dump, kids were taught about Pasteur.

skafather84
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22 Aug 2008, 2:10 pm

Dogbrain wrote:

skafather84 wrote:

No, not at all. Learn some history.

how about you answer my question you f*****g prick.

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