Page 113 - Basic Tenets of Islam

HARUN YAHYA (ADNAN OKTAR)

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, maggots developing in rotting meat was assumed to

be evidence of spontaneous generation. However, it was later
understood 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
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." 1
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 impasse.

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