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400
Pre-Aristotelian philosophers
The philosophers very long time ago predicted and believed that some life came from either the unknown, or a element from nature. This came to a big understanding for them, since it helped them believe that humans were born and set on earth because there were ancestors that were like us to make us what we are today. -
401
Aristotle's history of life
Spontaneous generation was made right this day, Aristotle wrote on his book that existing life comes out of no where from non living objects. This was because he thought that the history of events through out his daily life as weird objects appeared when he left his food outside for too long for instance gave him the thought that these are just made from nothing. -
Period: 500 to
Spontaneous generation's belief
In this timespan most people generally believed that living organisms spontaneously arose out of non living matter. -
The start of a disagreement
Francesco Redi, an Italian physician and poet, discovers that spontaneous generation could be a wrong theory. He tested this out by using three flasks one with a open system, another two with both closed systems but in different methods. It turned out only the flask that had air support had other organisms, and this was when it came to their minds that the living organisms could come from eggs of fleas. -
Supporting Spontaneous generation
John Needham went on with an experiment by burning a chicken until all the living organisms had turned dead, after this he left it open to see if living things appeared and it did, this was met by supporting the spontaneous generation theory -
Disappointment of Lazzaro
Lazzaro did a test just the same with Needham's but changed the fact that no air could flow through. It was looked as and he noticed no new living things grew, but people soon realised that it only proved how spontaneous generation does not occur without air -
Spontaneous generation is laid to rest
The young french chemist, Louis Pasteur developed a new experiment following on from Lazzaro and Redi, only that he twisted the flask into a S shape so that air could flow in but no micro organisms could, because of gravity. As expected no organisms were found but when he twisted it back straight up it soon got filled with new life. This proved that micro organisms are everywhere and also that Spontaneous generation is not true, since living organisms are from another life.
