"Life Comes from Life" Thesis, The

When Darwin wrote his book On the Origin of Species, the scientific world widely accepted the belief that bacteria could form themselves out of inanimate matter. (See also Abiogenesis View, the.) But the fact is that five years after the publication of Darwin’s book, the French biologist Louis Pasteur demolished this belief that represented the cornerstone of evolution.54 Pasteur summarized the conclusions he arrived at as a result of lengthy research and observation: “The claim that inanimate matter can originate life is buried in history for good.”55

For a long time, adherents of the theory of evolution held out against these findings of Pasteur’s. However, as science progressed and increasingly revealed the living cell’s complex structure, the idea that life could form itself spontaneously faced an ever-worsening impasse.