Page 396 - A Call For Unity
P. 396
A Call for Unity
inanimate matter must have produced a living cell as a result
of coincidences. 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 assumption that living beings had a very simple struc-
ture. Since medieval times, spontaneous generation, which
asserts that non-living materials came together to form living
organisms, had been widely accepted. It was commonly be-
lieved 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 as-
sumed 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 mat-
ter 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 theory. In his triumphal lecture at the
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