Is there any truth to this claim?

It appears to refer to Venter's experiment. He combined non-living chemicals into a known pattern and inserted them into a bacterial cell... where they did in fact come to life. That's not abiogenesis, but it's a large step closer. Recent reexamination of classic amino-acid generation experiments from the 1950s also produced unexpected results in terms of producing amino acids from chemicals thought to be present in the early terrestrial atmosphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter

Whoever said that is guilty of typical hyping up scientific achievements.

What has been demonstrated is that simple molecules given conditions that were believed to exist in the primordial soup in the primordial earth can be made to form simple amino acids. No long chain polymers and certainly no self replicating DNA or RNA have been synthesized artificially.

The person is not strictly speaking lying but is grossly exaggerating the achievement, not that the achievement wasn't spectacular but the achievement is spectacular enough on its own without the need for exaggeration.

So yes, from the link above it does seem abiogenesis has been demonstrated. The experiment doesn't seem to replicate the formation of life on Earth, but surely illustrates that it's possible life originated from non-living molecules.

Science never makes the news 24/7 and it was years ago. But yes. Organic compounds formed from non-organic compounds.

Captain Sarcastic: That's not abiogenesis.

headline news. are you Kidding? no way. anything that smacks of religious truth, is immediately slienced and censored in the news media which is controlled by evil people.

that said. i seriously have to look up what abiogenesis means.

I assume that person was talking about the artificial life created by Dr. Venter in May last year. And yeah it was headline news.

Morality continually has a social foundation. So in terms of 'perfect actuality' they are able to't be seen actuality claims, yet if the context of social ecosystem is known, they are able to be seen to be logical. e.g. killing isn't 'incorrect' (we kill animals to consume, as do many different animals - we kill in the process conflict, self-defence etc). in spite of the shown fact that, in a fashionable society, killing is incorrect because of the fact we've complicated human and economic inter-relationships which might breakdown (e.g. with vengeance) if human beings have been allowed to kill without being reprimanded. certainly, i think of it is oftentimes why infantrymen have a confusing time after getting back from conflict - they're located in a social ecosystem the place they're predicted to kill, then extra back out of that the place they're predicted to no longer kill - very disorientating.

No. Scientists cannot create a living thing from nonliving matter. They merely alter the biology of living cells by manipulating the code and apparently by creating an articficial code. But thay have not animated anything inanimate to start with. Thus the Captains claim is a bit premature.

Yes, there is. It was in the news, but largely overlooked by the mainstream.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biol...

Edit: Clive has a point, and might be referencing this much earlier experiment:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do53a...

There was a scientist who claimed that he too could create life and reached down for a handful of dirt to prove it and God said, "Get your own dirt."