- Genesis 1:24
Have you ever seen flies buzzing around a trash can? Or maybe seen a mouse or a rat living near a garbage dump? Today we know that flies and rats like to live near garbage because they can find food there.
But a long time ago, people actually believed that flies and rats came from trash. Flies and rats were always seen coming out of trash dumps, so people automatically assumed that living things could come from non-living things. This is what scientists called spontaneous generation.
Spontaneous means that something can be made without any outside cause or influence. And generation is used to describe when something is formed or generated.
Some scientists finally decided to test the idea of spontaneous generation and found some pretty interesting things. One scientist who tested the theory was Francesco Redi. He watched some trash for a long time to see if any changes would take place. What do you think happened?
If you guessed nothing, you were right!
Another scientist named Louis Pasteur did a different experiment to see if flies came from trash. He took three flasks (glasses), and filled each with some old food. One flask, he covered with a tight lid, another he covered with cloth, and the last he left uncovered.
After a few weeks, Pasteur noticed that the flask that was covered with the tight lid had not changed at all. No flies were in the flask, and the food in the flask did not seem to attract any flies.
The flies were attracted to the second flask that was covered with the cloth. They flew around it and laid their eggs on the cloth covering the flask.
By the end of the experiment, the third flask was full of flies. They had gotten into the flask and laid their eggs on the food that was inside.
Pasteur discovered from this experiment that non-living things such as trash couldn't produce living things, such as flies and rats. He determined that the flies were not coming from the food that was in his flask, but were actually the result of eggs that had been laid by other flies attracted to the food.
The experiments resulted in the idea that living things come from only other living things. This is what scientists call the law of biogenesis (bio-meaning life; and genesis meaning beginning).
Evolution does not follow the law of biogenesis. It teaches that humans evolved from non-living particles. But just like we know that flies do not come from trash, we also know that humans did not come from non-living things.
The Bible even talks about this idea. Genesis 1:24 says "God said: 'Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle, and creeping things, and beast of the earth after their kind;' and it was so."
God had a very special plan when He created each plant, animal and person. And He created us to produce after our own kind...not come from trash.
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