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330
B.C Aristotle Theory of Spontaneous Generation
Aristotle first compiled and expanded the work of prior natural philosophers and the various ancient explanations of the origin of life leading to the the theory of Spontaneous Generation. This theory swayed for as long as two millennia -
500
B.C Anaximander's Proposal
The concept of Spontaneous generation actually goes way back to Anaximander (a Greek philosopher) in the 6th Century BC. He proposed that when mud was exposed to sunlight, it formed life. This is a merely a assumption but it was generally accepted during that time -
Recipes to "create" Life
During the 17th Century, all over the world, mankind was formulating recipes to "create" organic life from inorganic matter. e.g Take sweaty rags, wrap them around wheat, and set them in an open jar. In 21 days, you'll "create" mice. -
Francesco Redi's Experiment
Francesco Redi, an Italian scientist, opposed the idea of spontoneous generation and thus designed a scientific experiment to test the idea that maggots were generated from rotting meat. He placed meat in three flasks, one open, one sealed and one with a filter. Maggots appeared in the open flask, but didn't appear in the sealed flask or the flask covered by gauze. He believed this disproved spontaneous generation. however it merely proved maggots didn't come from meat. -
Invention of Microscope
In the 1700s the microscope finally became widely used within scientists to prove expiriments and to observe small living things (microbes) within liquids like broth or gravy. -
John Needmans Rebuttle
A english scientist, John Needham callenged Redi's findings by placing gravy into a bottle, heated it to kill the lving organisms inside, then sealed it. Days later, he noticced presence of microbes in the gravy and announced that life can infact be created from inorganic matter. -
Lazzaro Spallanzani's Experiment
Lazzaro Spallanzani, an Italian scientist, reviewed both Redi's and Needham's experiments and concluded that Needham didn't heat the gravy enough to kill everything. He designed his own experiment by boiling gravy in two different bottle, then sealing one bottle and leaving the other open. He noticed the unsealed bottle contained small living things but the sealed one showed no signs of life. However, people argued that Spontaneous Generation needed to have air in order to work. -
Louis Pasteur Disproved Spontaneous Generation!
In 1859, a noteable french scientist, Louis Pasteur took on the challange to recreat Needman and Spallanzani's experiment but leave the bottles open to air. He designed a S-curved neck bottle
so that gravity would prevent acess by airborne materials. He put broth in this bottle, heated it to kill everything before leaving it out to see whether microbial growth. Althought the broth could access air, there was still no life developing under the microscope. This also proved microbes were aireborn. -
Parin and Haldane's Proclamation
Even after Louis Pasteur's experiment, Parin and Haldane proclaimed that basic life was produced from ultraviolet light acting on primitive atmosphere of water, ammonia and methane. This is because scientists are still questioning the Origin of Life on Earth, how did we come to be if Spontaneous Generation is false? There hasn't been a solid explanation for that. -
Harold Morowitz's view of the Possibility of Spontaneous Generation
Harold Morowitz, a famous physicist from Yale as well as the author of "Origin of Cellular Life (1993)" said that it is one chance in 10 ^100,000,000,000. In this sense, notion of life that somehow rose from non-life far surpassed the scientific standard for statistical impossibility (usually at one in 10^50).
