Page 137 - Some Secrets of the Qur'an

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THE EVOLUTION MISCONCEPTION

"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
assumption that living beings had a very simple structure.
Since medieval times, spontaneous generation, the theory
asserting that non-living 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 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, worms developing in meat was assumed to be
evidence of spontaneous generation. However, only some time
later was it 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 in the period 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 Darwin's book was published, the
discovery of Louis Pasteur disproved this belief, which
constituted the groundwork of evolution. Pasteur summarized
the conclusion he reached after time-consuming studies and
experiments: "The claim that inanimate matter can originate life is
buried in history for good." 10
Advocates of the theory of evolution resisted the findings of
Pasteur for a long time. 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.