Page 274 - Signs from the Qur'an

any design, plan or arrangement. According to the theory, inan-
imate matter must have produced a living cell as a result of co-
incidences. 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 as-
sumption 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 in-
sects 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 as-
sumed to be evidence of spontaneous gen-
eration. However, it was later under-
stood that worms did not appear on
meat spontaneously, but were car-
ried there by flies in the form of lar-
vae, invisible to the naked eye.
Even when Darwin wrote The
Origin of Species, the belief that bac-
teria could come into existence
from non-living matter was widely
accepted in the world of science.

272 Louis Pasteur