Page 202 - Biomimetics: Technology Imitates Nature

Biomimetics: Technology Imitates Nature

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 genera-
tion. However, it was later un-
derstood 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
French chemist Louis Pasteur
Origin of Species, the belief that bac-

teria could come into existence from non-living matter was widely ac-
cepted 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." 137
For a long time, advocates of the theory of evolution resisted these
findings. However, as the development of science unraveled the com-
plex structure of the cell of a living being, the idea that life could come
into being coincidentally faced an even greater impasse.

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