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Spontaneous generation is the notion that biological life, in and of itself, may be "jump started" from inorganic materials. This view of the origin of life has prevailed for centuries. In the 4th century B.C., Aristotle held that fleas and mosquitoes arise from rotting matter. Others contended that maggots spontaneously develop in decaying meat. It has been alleged that a horse-hair, soaked long enough in water, will turn into a worm.

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"So with animals, some spring from parent animals according to their kind, whilst others grow spontaneously and not from kindred stock; and of these instances of spontaneous generation some come from putrefying earth or vegetable matter, as is the case with a number of insects, while others are spontaneously generated in the inside of animals out of the secretions of their several organs." [Aristotle, History of Animals, 539a18-26] "Other insects are not derived from living parentage, but are generated spontaneously: some out of dew falling on leaves, ordinarily in spring-time, but not seldom in winter when there has been a stretch of fair weather and southerly winds; others grow in decaying mud or dung; others in timber, green or dry; some in the hair of animals; some in the flesh of animals; some in excrements: and some from excrement after it has been voided, and some from excrement yet within the living animal, like the helminthes or intestinal worms." [551a1-10]

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It was once believed that mice could arise spontaneously from spilled wheat in barns, and that flies arose spontaneously out of rotting meat.

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Out of the Dark Ages. One of the superstitious beliefs of the Dark Ages was the theory of "spontaneous generation." That was the idea that if you threw a bunch of clothes in a corner, after a time it would turn into mice. If you kept some old flour for a time, it would change into worms.

A Dead Blow to the Theory of the Sponteneous Generation of Life. Several centuries ago, some scientists began to question the belief in the spontaneous generation of life, and decided to put the theory to a scientific test. These controlled experiments deal a mortal blow to such a belief.

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Francisco Redi (c1626-1697) demonstrated in 1668 that maggots did not, contrary to Aristotle, arise spontaneously, but from eggs laid by adult flies. Meat covered so that the flies could not reach it was free of maggots, while meat that flies could reach developed them. A member of the Academy of Experiments in Florence, he carried out several experiments on the matter, following the development of fly larvae form eggs, on different meats including lion meat, lamb, fishes and snakes. The results were published as Experiments on the Generation of Insects.

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The great scientist Louis Pasteur realized the futility of spontaneous generation. Francesco Redi had demonstrated long before that flies didn't 'arise' from decaying meat but from the eggs that other flies laid on the meat! Pasteur definitively showed that microbes did not arise in a sterile meat broth until and unless other microbes had access to it. He and the great pathologist Rudolf Virchow formulated what later became known as the biogenetic law: Life comes only from life.

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Pasteur's experiments confirmed that life reproduces only after its own kind and that even micro-organisms, at that time unseen by the human eye, need micro-organisms as parents. For the first time, evolutionary reasoning was refuted by sound scientific inquiry that was not first influenced by philosophical thought.

The entire modern food industry relies on the validity of the experiment done by Luis Paster. If this was in doubt, you would have a serious problem anytime you decided to purchase canned food. You do this knowing that you can open a can of beans that has been sitting in your pantry for months without the risk of finding worms inside the can. The same could be said about the asepsis practiced inside our modern hospitals. Physicians and nurses are expected to follow scrub procedures to insure thas infections would not develop after surgery.

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This principle undergirds aseptic surgery and the preservation of foods by sterilizing.

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This is a theory called "Spontaneous Generation" and it was rejected in the 1600s because of the experiments of Italian scientist Francesco Redi. . . . The belief in spontaneous generation still continued until French chemist Louis Pasteur finally settled the issue in the mid-1800s. He discovered that even the smallest amounts of bacteria do not arise spontaneously but always grow from other bacteria, proving that living organisms always come from other living organisms.

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In 1668 Francesco Redi showed that maggots only appeared on spoiled meat if flies had laid eggs there. If he placed a screen to keep flies off, no maggots appeared, even though fly eggs were on the screen. But it remained for creationist Louis Pasteur, in 1861, to describe his simple, yet elegant, experiment that finally proved that life came only from life.

Darwin Comes to the Rescue of the Discarded theory of spontaneous Generation of Life. You would think that after the experiment performed by Redi and Pasteur, the belief in the spontaneous generation of life would be discarded for good by scientists. It didn't happen. Erasmus Darwin's, and later Charles Darwin himself came to the rescue of the discredited theory of spontaneous generation of life.

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You may think that this was the end of the ideas of spontaneous generation. However, Erasmus Darwin would not let go of it. It was an essential part of his evolutionary theory and his poem “The origin of society” described and annotated it. (5) Erasmus Darwin simply chose deception rather than truth and ignored Spallanzani's experiments as though they were never performed. It was not until Louis Pasteur (interestingly another believer in Creation) that spontaneous generation was finally laid to rest, just in time for Erasmus Darwins grandson Charles to pick up the batten of godless philosophy. Interestingly, Erasmus Darwin combined spontaneous generation with millions of ages for the first microbes to change into humans. As such from pure philosophy he moved the hypothesis of evolution firmly out of the reach of experimentation by future Redis and Spallanzanis. Today the hypothesis of evolution can never be proved incorrect by real observational science and no controls can be used against it. As such it remains as an improvable and un-testable fashionable belief. But, by its very nature pseudo-science.

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[Charles] Darwin himself did, in a letter to his botanist friend Joseph Hooker in 1871, he wrote: "It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, &c., present, that a proteine (sic) compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were found."

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Pasteur's work should have dealt the death blow to the idea of spontaneous generation. But spontaneous generation is an essential part of the theory of evolution.

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The basis for evolution led to a revival of the spontaneous biogenesis theory, also known as chemical evolution, or spontaneous generation

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Evolution is based upon a theory that at some point in time, billions of years ago, no life existed upon the earth, not even one trace of life could be found. But, somehow, a miracle occurred when just the right mixture of gases and acids mingled themselves together and microscopic organisms begin to develop. It was impossible, but it happened just the same. In a swamp somewhere on earth, it is conjectured that non-living matter gave birth to that which was alive. It sounds very romantic and has captured the interest of thousands, however there is just one major flaw in the whole scenario. The fundamental laws of science contradict this basic evolutionary premise. The fundamental law of biology is the Law of Biogenesis. This scientific law upholds that all life must come from preceding life, and that of its kind. Science teaches that life does not come from nonliving matter. Dr. Lazzaro Spallanzani and Louis Pasteur proved in the middle of the eighteenth century that the concept of "spontaneous generation" was indeed false. Dr. Pasteur in his "victory speech" to the French Academy of Science stated, "The theory of spontaneous generation will never recover from the mortal blow dealt it by this simple experiment." The experiment of which he spoke proved the formerly held theory of spontaneous generation false. Scientists that promote evolution cannot get their theory to harmonize with this known law of science. They have a dilemma; their theory contradicts science.

Conclusion. What can we safely conclude from all of the above? I derive from all this that the theory of evolution is not strictly speaking science, but rather philosophical speculation. By hypothesizing that life was spontaneously generated millions of years ago under unknown conditions, Darwin turned the theory of evolution into science fiction, unreached by experimentation and replication. Several centuries have elapsed since Luis Pasteur conducted his famous experiment showing that life is not the result of spontaneous generation, but rather the result of the existence of previous life.

In spite of this, the die-hard defenders of evolution will not admit that their theory has no scientific basis. Science demands experimentation, verification, and replication. If life can be the result of spontaneous generation, then it is high time that the disciples of Darwin deliver the goods. Let them demonstrate in the laboratory how this can take place. It has never been done, and probably it will never take place.

Nevertheless, bear in mind that, if future scientists through sheer luck manage to produce life from non-living, inert matter, then it will be evident that life is not the result of spontaneous generation, but rather the result of--believe it or not--Intelligent Design.

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For additional reading, check the following references:

1. WAS DARWIN RIGHT?
http://www.wasdarwinright.com/oldscience-f.htm

2. Spontaneous Generation
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Origin%20of%20Life/spontaneous_generation.html

3. Spontaneous Generation and the Origin of Life
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/spontaneous-generation.html

4. The Spontaneous Generation hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

5. Pasteur and Spontaneous Generation
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/creationist.html

6. The Mythology of Science: Spontaneous Generation
http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/reprints/Mythology-of-Science.pdf