Page 148 - The Miracle in the Immune System

146 THE MIRACLE OF THE IMMUNE SYSTEM

According to the theory, inanimate matter must have
produced a living cell as a result of coincidences. Such a
claim, however, is inconsistent with the most unassail-
able 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 assumption 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 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