King's Business - 1925-07

July 1925

THE K I N G ’S B U S I N E S S

298

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Satan’sTriangle: Evolution, Philosophy,^Criticism S. J. Bole, Professor of Biology, Wheaton College, Illinois

The third of a series of articles under this caption by one who speaks with authority, having, after graduating at Ann Arbor, earned credits in several dozen graduate courses in the Universities of Illinois and Wisconsin; later teaching science and plant breeding in the University of Illinois, and now for six years Professor of Biology at Wheaton College. He was converted from a belief in the evolutionary theory to absolute faith in the

inerrant Word of God while teaching in the University, though he had- been a church member and teacher of a Bible class for many years. He writes especially to help, if possible, save from the shipwreck of their faith, the thousands of young men and women in our High Schools and Colleges.

Needham argued that this prolonged boiling by Spallan­ zani had not only killed the microscopic life in the flasks but that the “vegetative force” from which the life comes had been destroyed. Spallanzani easily overcame Needham’s objection by exposing to the air the contents of some of these same flasks. Within a few days the contents of these flasks were swarming with low forms of life. These results of Spallan­ zani were published in 1775 and the question of the spon­ taneous generation of life seemed to be settled for all time. At about this time, however, Joseph Priestly discovered oxygen and the question came up again for debate when it was learned that oxygen is necessary for all forms of life, the opposition claiming that the heating process had robbed the oxygen of its life-giving qualities. In 1836 two German scientists, Franz Schultze and Theo­ dore Schwann, repeated Spallanzani’s experiment and found that life did not appear in the liquid cultures after being sterilized and pure outside air being afterwards forced into the bottles. They concluded that there is something in the air that produces life. In 1843 Helmholtz showed that this contaminating substance is a solid, because it does not pass through a moist animal membrane. This question which had been settled a second time was unexpectedly opened again in 1859 by a Frenchman named Pouchet. His evolutionary philosophy made it impossible for him to believe the results of Schultze, Schwann, and Helm­ holtz. In repeating these experiments he secured low forms of life in his cultures. Pouchet had filled his bottles with sterilized water and inverted them in a mercury bath. Into these he had substituted by displacement small bits of sterilized hay and lastly a certain amount of oxygen generated at white heat. In a few days this hay infusion was seen to be swarming with microscopic life, which Pouchet declared to be of spontaneous origin. Finally the French Academy of Science appointed a com­ mittee to decide upon the question. In 1864 before a large audience at the Sorbonne, Pasteur the originator of the germ theory of diseases, pointed out the source of error made by Pouchet and his predecessors. An intensely illum­ inated beam of light was thrown upon the apparatus in a darkened room by means of which the audience could- see the surface of the mercury in the trough to be covered with dust particles. As the hay was inserted in the mercury it was seen to be covered with the dust particles from its surface. He further demonstrated that living germs could be removed from the ajr by straining the air through a layer of gun cotton and then dissolving the cotton in ether. He also showed that many of these micro-organisms can live in the oxygen generated by the chemical reaction which they produce in their development in the culture. One of the sixty original flasks prepared by Pasteur and holding a small quantity o i veal broth is the prized pos- (Continued on page 329)

Chapter Three THE ORIGIN OF LIFE H HEN, where and how did life begin on the earth? Children and grownups alike are asking them­ selves these questions, and because the origin of life is so important in the discussion of evolution, we shall discuss it a little more in detail in this chapter. The old Egyptians believed that the earth was the mother of life. They believed that insects came from the dew; that frogs, toads, rats and mice came from the ponds and rivers. This is one of the earliest records that we have, of “spon­ taneous generation.” Centuries later the materialistic Greek philosophers thought much on the subject. They either copied from the Egyptians, or came to the same conclusion in their own thinking, that certain lower forms of life at least were spon­ taneously generated. Their arguments, however, were clouded and mystical. In the latter half of the seventeenth century and before the invention of the compound microscope, Francesco Redi, an Italian physician, sought to test this age-old theory of spontaneous generation by the new laboratory method. We must keep in mind that microscopic organisms were as yet unknown. His experiment was simple. He exposed meat in wide-mouthed flasks; some of which were covered; some left uncovered; and the remainder covered with fine veil­ ing. The meat in all the flasks soon spoiled, maggots appearing on the meat in the uncovered flask and on the veiling of the third group. Redi did not understand why the meat spoiled but he did conclude that the maggots of flies hatch from eggs. Soon after this Yan Leewenhock, a Holland sheriff, became interested in the newly invented compound micro­ scope. His discovery of the minute infusoria and bacteria led to the transference of the question of spontaneous generation from the larger to the more minute forms of life. Seventy years later, Needham, an English Catholic priest, repeated the experiment of Redi. He filled several vials with the extracted juices of meat, carefully sealed them, and then heated the sealed bottles before setting them away. After a- time the fluids became infected with microscopic life and Needham wrongly concluded that these living forms had been produced by spontaneous origin. Not satisfied with this, Spallanzani, an Italian professor at the University of Bologna, repeated Needham’s experi­ ment, using glass flasks with slender necks instead of vials. These flasks were hermetically sealed after the fluids had been introduced, and then boiled in water for upwards of an hour to destroy all life within the flasks. No life appearing, Spallanzani concluded that Needham’s conclusions were faulty and that low forms of life are not spontaneously generated.

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