08-25-2010, 06:54 PM
mrlynn wrote:
The hypothesis of abiotic oil has its proponents, esp. Prof. Thomas Gold of Cornell, mentioned above...
From the same Wikipedia article:
Although the abiogenic hypothesis was accepted by some geologists in the former Soviet Union, most geologists now consider the abiogenic formation of petroleum scientifically unsupported. Although evidence exists for abiogenic formation of methane and hydrocarbon gases within the Earth, studies indicate they are not produced in commercially significant quantities (i.e. a median abiogenic hydrocarbon content in extracted hydrocarbon gases of 0.02%).
...And Gold was a contrarian. If he believed the scientific community had a consensus on creationism, he'd be an evolutionist out of pure spite.