Page 179 - Miracles of The Qur'an Vol. 3

Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar)

spontaneous generation, which asserts that non-living materials came to-
gether to form living organisms, had been widely accepted. It was com-
monly 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 be-
lieved 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 bacte-

ria could come into existence from non-living matter was widely accept-
ed 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 doc-
trine of spontaneous generation re-
cover from the mortal blow struck
by this simple experiment." 140
For a long time, advocates of
the theory of evolution resisted
these findings. However, as the de-
velopment of science unraveled the
complex structure of the cell of a liv-
ing being, the idea that life could come
into being coincidentally faced an even
greater impasse.
Lou is Pas te ur

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