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Aristotle Supports Spontaneous Generation (date is wrong because it doesn't display if the date is BCE)
In his book The History of Animals Aristotle states: "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." Supporting the idea of Spontaneous Generation. -
Francesco Redi is the first to disprove Spontaneous Generation for large organisms through meat experiment
Redi found that when cheesecloth was placed over a piece of meat maggots would not grow inside the meat but would grow on the cheesecloth, proving that the eggs did not generate in the meat, but instead were laid by flied on top of the cheesecloth. Redi disproved Spontaneous Generation for large organisms. -
John Needham supports Spontaneous Generation with broth experiment
Needham boils broth believing that boiling will kill all organisms and found that there still were organisms present in the broth after boiling and covering the container. (Of course he was wrong because some of the organisms were in the air and other organisms were not killed by boiling) -
Lazzaro Spallanzani disproves John Needham's experimentation
Lazzaro Spallanzani improves John Needham's experimentation by removing air from the flask. As a result no organism growth was observed because in the earlier experimentation the organism growth was caused by the air in the flask. Spallanzani once again changed the mindset of the science community on spontaneous generation. -
Louis Pasteur disproves Spontaneous Generation with swan neck flask
Louis Pasteur does his famous swan neck flask experimentation where he boils broth in a swan neck shaped container where the opening of the flask is lower than the top of the flask, so organisms don't enter the flask. As a result, after boiling the broth no organisms were found in the broth, showing that all organisms from previous experiments came from outside the flask or from the air inside the flask. (There were probably still some organisms present, such as heat resistant spores) -
John Tyndall shows existence of heat resistant spores, further disproving John Needham's experimentation
John Tyndall discovers the existence of heat resistant spores, which means boiling broth does not kill all organisms, showing any movement in the broth would be from preexisting microorganisms. This information did not have a large impact on the experiments because even if there were heat resistant spores they were not observed.
