Page 324 - The Danger of a Communist Kurdistan

"Life Comes From Life"

In his book, Darwin never referred to the origin of life. The primi-
tive understanding of science in his time rested on the assumption that
living beings had a very simple structure. Since medieval times, spon-

taneous generation, which asserts that non-living materials came toget-
her to form living organisms, had been widely accepted. It was com-
monly 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, maggots developing in rotting meat was assumed to be

evidence of spontaneous generation. However, it was later understo-
od that worms did not appear on meat spontaneously, but
were carried there by flies in the form of larvae,
invisible 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 cor-
nerstone of Darwin's theory. In his

triumphal lecture at the Sorbonne in
1864, Pasteur said: "Never will the
doctrine of spontaneous
Louise Pasteur

322 The Danger of a Communist Kurdistan