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I prefer to think that Aristotle wasn't wrong, just operating at an insufficiently-complex level of abstraction. Life did / does spontaneously generate, but it
by eszed 3y ago
I prefer to think that Aristotle wasn't wrong, just operating at an insufficiently-complex level of abstraction. Life did / does spontaneously generate, but it involves amino acids and cosmic rays (or something like that), not rotting meat and sunshine. (Wasn't that the experiment Pasteur used? Proving that flies had to lay invisible eggs before maggots could appear.)
- actuallyalys 3y agoI do think this distinction is important beyond how we view Aristotle. Some creationists argue Louis Pasteur disproved abiogenesis (and in their view, evolution as well) even though his experiments addressed the spontaneous generation of life under current conditions, not whether any form of life can form from nonliving material at all. I believe he disproved both maggots and microorganisms spontaneously generating.