Sometimes, in the summer, I forget I’m a teacher and get pretty down. I love having the summer off to spend with my son, but I certainly have the itch to get back in the classroom. I found a paper today from the March4, 1876 edition of the British Medical Journal entitled, “A word on the Origin of Bacteria, and on Abiogenesis.” In this article William Roberts (a contemporary of Pasteur) does a wonderful job in explaining the faults of the theory of abiogenesis. Such a wonderful job that I will have to include this letter in my reading packet / handbook for General Biology.

We live in an age of certainty about where life comes from. It is very interesting to go back and see just how hard fought the ideas we take for granted once were.