Page 121 - The importance of conscience in the Qur'an

The Evolution Deception 119

cidences. Such a claim, however, is inconsistent with the most
unassailable rules of biology.

"Life Comes from Life"
In his book, Darwin never referred to the origin of life. The
primitive understanding of science in his time rested on the
assumption that living beings had a very simple structure. Since
medieval times, spontaneous generation, which asserts that non-
living materials came together to form living organisms, had
been widely accepted. It was commonly believed that insects
came into being from food leftovers, and mice from wheat.
Interesting experiments were conducted to prove this theory.
Some wheat was placed on a dirty piece of cloth, and it was
believed that mice would originate from it after a while.
Similarly, worms developing in meat was assumed to be
evidence of spontaneous generation. However, it was later
understood that worms did not appear on meat spontaneous-
ly, but were carried there by flies in the form of larvae, invisi-
ble to the naked eye.
Even when Darwin wrote The Origin of Species, the belief
that bacteria could come into existence from non-living matter
was widely accepted in the world of science.
However, five years after the publication of Darwin's
book, Louis Pasteur announced his results after long studies
and experiments, that disproved spontaneous generation, a
cornerstone of Darwin's theory. In his triumphal lecture at the
Sorbonne in 1864, Pasteur said: "Never will the doctrine of
spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow struck
by this simple experiment." 4