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Anaximander 611-547 BC
The first person to recommend that life spontaneously created was Anaximander, who is a Milesian philosopher. He thought everything was made by elemental nature of the universe. -
340
Aristotle 384-322 BC
Aristotle determined that there are four elements, earth, air, fire, and water. He didn’t think that the earth or the universe had a beginning. Aristotle believed that only simple organisms and bodies would spontaneously generate, but human could not. -
William Harvey published De Generatione
William Harvey published De Generatione, which talked about all life from eggs, rejecting the idea of spontaneous generation, and he believed that spontaneous generation was due from invisible seeds. -
Francesco Redi challenged the Spontaneous Generation Idea
Redi thought that maggots spontaneously developed into flies by eggs that were laid, not from meat. So, he created an experiment with open flasks to prove his hypothesis. Experiment: several jars with draw meat inside to prove that maggots do not rise from meat. -
John Needham
In 1745, John Needham argued that he was not convinced by Fransco Redi's experiemnt. So he created his own experiment: Boiling broth in a flask then sealing it, bacteria and mold was created, believing it was spontaneous generation. The boiling was supposed to kill all the bacteria to prove that new life forms emerged. -
Lazzaro Spallanzi
In 1768, Lazzaro Spallanzani (an Italian scientist) looked at Redi and Needham's experiments and found an error in Needham's experiment. Needham did not boil the broth long enough. So he constructed a new experiment of boiling broth in two separate bottles, and leaving one sealed and one unsealed. After leaving it for a few days, he observed it with a microscope, and no life was growing in the sealed bottle. Some scientists still believed Spontaneous Generation existed, it just needed air. -
Felix Archimende Pouchet
Felix Archimede Pouchet presented papers to the Academy of Science in Paris, supporting the spontaneous generation, trying to show how it happened and under what circumstance it happened. He believed that sexual generation was a spontaneous act due to a necessary force as much as spontaneous generation. -
Louis Pasteaur
Pasteaur created an experiment to put nutrient-enriched broth into a bottle shaped like a gooseneck and many S-curves, to allow air in, but no airborne foreign materials could get into the jar, and another gooseneck shaped jar with boiled broth in the other. No life forms were created for a year, so then he opened the top of the jar. Life forms appeared quickly, so he came to the conclusion that the exposure came from life-forms in the air. This experiment proved that even if the non-living -
Thomas H. Huxley's Speech
Tomas H. Huxley gave a speech strongly supporting Pasteur’s experiment and claim about the spontaneous generation not being real. -
John Tyndall published his research
John Tyndall published his research on “fractional sterilization, showing the existence of heat resistant bacterial spores”, proving John Needham’s experiment inaccurate.
