Page 226 - A Historical Lie: The Stone Age

A HISTORICAL LIE: THE STONE AGE

Darwin assumed that the
cell was a simple blob of
protoplasm. As science
progressed, however, it
revealed that the cell
possessed a structure
with a complexity that
amazed scientists.

Inconclusive Efforts of the Twentieth Century

The first evolutionist who took up the subject of the origin of li-
fe in the twentieth century was the renowned Russian biologist Ale-
xander Oparin. With various theses he advanced in the 1930s, he
tried to prove that a living cell could originate by coincidence. These

studies, however, were doomed to failure, and Oparin had to make
the following confession:
Unfortunately, however, the problem of the origin of the cell is per-
haps the most obscure point in the whole study of the evolution of
organisms. 84

Evolutionist followers of Oparin tried to carry out experiments
to solve this problem. The best known experiment was carried out

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