Synopsis Of The Second Chapter Of Signature In The Cell by Stephen Meyer posted at The ID Report:
When the 19th century chemist Friedrich Wohler synthesized urea in the lab using simple chemistry, he set in motion the ball that would ultimately knock down the then-pervasive ‘Vitalistic’ view of biology. Life’s chemistry, rather than being bound by immaterial ‘vital forces’ could indeed by artificially made. While Charles Darwin offered little insight on how life originated, several key scientists would later jump on Wohler’s ‘Eureka’-style discovery through public proclamations of their own ‘origin of life’ theories. The ensuing materialist view was espoused by the likes of Ernst Haeckel and Rudolf Virchow who built their own theoretical suppositions on Wohler’s triumph. Meyer summed up the logic of the day
“If organic matter could be formed in the laboratory by combining two inorganic chemical compounds then perhaps organic matter could have formed the same way in nature in the distant past” (p.40)
Darwin’s theory generated the much-needed …