Page 256 - Darwin's Dilemma: The Soul

Darwin’s Dilemma: The Soul

Similarly, maggots develop-
ing in rotting meat was as-
sumed to be evidence of
spontaneous generation.
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, invis-
ible to the naked eye.
Even when Darwin
wrote The Origin of Species,
the belief that bacteria could
come into existence from non-
The French biologist Louis Pasteur
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 experi-
ments, 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." 149
For a long time, advocates of the theory of evolution resisted
these findings. However, as the development of science unraveled
the complex structure of the cell of a living being, the idea that life
could come into being coincidentally faced an even greater im-
passe.

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I Inconclusive Efforts of the Twentieth Century
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The first evolutionist who took up the subject of the ori-
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