Editing Thomas Gold (section)

===Dispute nearly forgotten===

In 1996 a paper published in the journal ''Social Studies of Science'' was titled, "Which Came First, the Fossil or the Fuel?"<ref name="Cole-1996">{{cite journal |last1=Cole |first1=Simon A |title=Which Came First, the Fossil or the Fuel? |journal=Social Studies of Science |date=November 1996 |volume=26 |issue=4 |doi=10.1177/030631296026004 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/030631296026004002}}</ref> The author concluded:<blockquote>

Beginning in the late 1970s, Gold revived the 'abiogenic' theory, which holds that hydrocarbons are primordial, not remnants of decayed biology. By contesting the central tenet of petroleum geology, Gold precipitated a bitter scientific controversy. Both sides employed novel rhetorical strategies in order to impute interests, to contest expertise, to recruit allies from peripheral disciplines, and to claim the mantle of scientific method; and both managed to construct plausible interpretations of the available data.</blockquote>

The author reported that even the Siljan drilling results had not been sufficient to fully resolve the long-standing dispute about origins, although Gold's hypothesis is favored by only a very slim minority.<ref name="Cole-1996" />  As of 2024, "[[fossil fuel]]" is still the prevailing term widely in use in reference to petroleum resources, both within academia and without. Such terminology includes 21st century communications about the causes of [[climate change|anthropogenic climate change]] and proffered solutions to the crisis, such as the 2023 [[IPCC]] report, "Climate Change 2023 Synthesis Report: Summary for Policymakers."<ref name="IPCC-2023">{{cite web |last1=IPCC |title=Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report: Summary for Policy Makers |url=https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf}}</ref> Overall, within the academic disciplines of geobiology and petroleum geology, criticism of Gold's abiogenic theory has been severe — but not entire. The dispute is more set aside and forgotten than resolved.<ref name="Colman">{{cite journal |last1=Colman |first1=Daniel |title=The deep, hot biosphere: Twenty-five years of retrospection |journal=PNAS |date=3 July 2017 |volume=114 |issue=27 |pages=6895–6903 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1701266114 |pmid=28674200 |pmc=5502609 |bibcode=2017PNAS..114.6895C |doi-access=free }}</ref>

As to whether Gold's framing of distinct chemosynthetic microbes are active and ubiquitous at depth, the established authorities have moved in his direction. (See next section.)