What the Monkey is Going on Here!
In 1859 the dusty taxidermied womb of Mommy SG immaculately conceived and had a baby. It was nothing short of a miracle! Baby E found his permanent home in the stillborn book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charlie Darwin. This book concluded that since micro organisms were spontaneously generated and higher life forms were not, then the synthesis must be that one comes from the other. This book was very special not for its fatally flawed formula but because within his recipe Charlie included a very special and magic ingredient. The quintessential element to his theory and the magic in his potion was enchanted phrase: “immense periods of time”. Even though originally speculated to only be thousands of years, Chuck was confident that through the study of fossils and early history that this theory would be easily and quickly proven. This meant the awkwardly named and tarnished theory of Spontaneous Generation could now take on a new life as “The Theory of Evolution”. With a little tweaking and some makeup it satisfied all the requirements of the scientific and scholarly communities: It steered clear of Creation, It did not need a Creator or Designer. And most importantly it was backed up by all the scientific research and available facts of the day….. almost.
In 1768 Lazzaro Spallanzani proved that microbes in water came from the air, and that they could be killed by boiling the water. And in 1862 (just three years after Darwin’s theory) Louis Pasteur performed a series of careful experiments which proved that organisms such as bacteria and fungi do not appear in nutrient rich matter all by themselves. To the great disappointment of Mommy SG, Pasteur demonstrated successfully that organisms do not generate spontaneously in nonliving nutrients.
Just like its parental hat rack however the Theory of Evolution (or Totgeboren as I like to call Baby E) could not be cast out simply because research didn’t support it and it began to reek from the stench of death. It was stuffed like its mother and sat in the window on the hill for everyone to admire. To bury it would leave that all encompassing void that could not be permitted least the Church take over the world again and perhaps throw Galileo’s telescope out with the bathwater. Unlike, his mother however Chuckie’s darling had the magic ingredient remember: “immense periods of time”. Initially this was used to buy time by some who were attempting to come up with a new non-theistic theory of the origin of life. And so the time frames were pushed back. Darwin had made this easy by leaving it so wide open. There was no restraint on how long ago it was. So thousands became hundreds of thousands very quickly and then millions and today its millions and millions and some have even suggested billions. And as a marketing ploy they have a new and improved name for Baby E and his momma: Abiogenesis which is just Greek for “non biological origins” but actually means non-theistic formation of life from non-living matter. Fancy huh? Are you impressed? Are you sick of my Psycho allusions?
to be continued…
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