Loius Pasteur and other 19th century scientists proved by experimentation that life could only come from life?

Question

Many experiments have been conducted to try to prove that life could generate spontaneously. One experiment I've heard of is apparently often conducted in classrooms.
This is where a jar is half filled with liquid and a spark is sent through it. This experiment can reproduce the basic building blocks of life. The jar represents the earth,the water is the earth's oceans,the air in the jar the Earth's atmosphere,the spark represents the conditions that made life possible,the basic building blocks of life represent themselves. This seems conclusive that life can generate spontaneously. However,who does the student or scientist conducting the experiment represent? The student had an intelligent purpose in conducting the experiment. Does it not follow that whoever created life would have had an intelligent purpose in doing so?
Is this and the other experiments good for proving evolution? If you have a good argument against any part of this question,give it in a detailed,fair minded way.

Answer 1

It is a common misconception that evolution somehow pertains to the origin of life. It doesn't. Although it is a plausible hypothesis that life arose through evolutionary processes, in no way does evolution rest on the origin of life.

Pasteur 'proved' that a flask of sugar left sealed by itself for a few days wouldn't spontaneously form life. The experiment was done in order to investigate the ancient notion that life sprang in to existence by itself, eg. mice sprang in to existence inside grain silos, maggots sprang out of meat, and microbes out of other compounds. By the rigorous scientific standards of today, it wouldn't be said that Pasteur and co 'proved' anything because they didn't test anywhere near every set of circumstances (in fact no-one ever could test every possible circumstance hence its impossible to absolutely 'prove' many things in science), as silly as the idea of spontaneous generation may seem today, given that we know mice come from mice, maggots from flies, and microbes from microbes.

The Miller-Urey experiment showed that amino acids could form naturally in the 'organic-soup' environment of the early earth. The spark simply simulated lightening. Amino acids and other compounds are still a long way from life but the thing all the experiments (eg. RNA, DNA and lipid ones) have in common is that they model processes which could have occurred naturally (or you could say accidentally) in the environment which existed at the time.

Answer 2

Timponderer has explained the purpose of the Miller-Urey experiment, and distinguished the study of the origins of life (abiogenesis) from the study of its development (evolution) extremely well, so I won't add to that.

But I would just say that nothing in evolution or abiogenesis proves - or requires proving - that there is no God. It is perfectly possible to accept the scientific explanation but still believe that there was an intelligent creator who started the whole thing off. Nothing science can ever do will disprove that, and many scientists do believe it.

The Miller-Urey experiment proved that a naturalistic explanation of the origins of life is at least feasible. It didn't prove that God was or wasn't involved in any way.

However this enters the realm of faith - all science does is explain the evidence we have. Whether or not you believe there is a being who started everything off and gave it purpose is quite separate from that.

Answer 3

Couldn't there be a feasible answer such that, like the present, when charge gathers above the surface of the earth the earth acts as a neutral receptor of electrons and thus charge is moved from the cloud (or whatever) to the earth? The experimenter is merely recreating a theory and providing a catalyst. Although they have intelligent purpose to do so to try and create life, if it were to happen in an uncontrolled system couldn't that lead to evolutionary theory?

In my opinion none of the "proofs" of evolution are all that valid. We have a VERY incomplete and inaccurate fossil record. The bird/lizard creature that is a supposed link between dinosaurs and birds is quite detached from that. (there is some proof I can't recall off the top of my head). Lastly the fact that DNA mapping has shown that humans and apes are 98% similar. Well, it's amazing what 2% of DNA can do. People with genetic deficiencies need only a sequence or two to be out of place for there to be complete chaos in their body. To give 2% such a great leeway when minute variants cause great damage is ridiculous.