Page 155 - The Nightmare of Disbelief

dieval times, spontaneous generation, which asserts that non-liv-
ing materials came together to form living organisms, had been
widely accepted. It was commonly believed that insects came into
being from food leftovers, and mice from wheat. Interesting ex-
periments 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 ex-
periments, that disproved spontaneous generation, a corner-
stone 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
153
theory of evolution resisted these find-
ings. 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.

With the experiments he carried out,
Louis Pasteur invalidated the claim that
"inanimate matter can create life," which
constituted the groundwork of the theory
of evolution.

HARUN YAHYA (ADNAN OKTAR)