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500 BCE
Anaximander proposes Spontaneous Generation
A Greek philosopher, the first person to propose spontaneous generation. -
300 BCE
Aristotle promotes Spontaneous Generation
Wrote a book called “The History of Animals” which promoted Anaximanders views and formed the basis of the Catholic Church’s views -
Francesco Redi Starts to Disprove Spontaneous Generation
Performed an experiment that showed, contrary to popular belief, that maggots didn’t appear spontaneously. He did this by conducting an experiment where meat was placed in a gar. One of the jars was open, one was covered in gauze, and one was sealed. There were only maggots in the jar that was open, showing that maggots came from flies eggs. -
John Needham Defends Spontaneous Generation
John Needham performed an experiment where he placed broth into a sealed container and boiled it. It was thought that boiling killed all the bacteria, so after he found life despite boiling it, he tried to prove spontaneous generation. -
Lazzaro Spallanzari Corrects Needham
He looked at Needham’s experiment and concluded that not all bacteria were killed during the experiment. He did a similar experiment, with two containers containing broth, one that was sealed and one that was open. After the experiment, the unsealed one had lots of life, whilst the sealed one had no life. -
Louis Pasteur Disproves Spontaneous Generation
Louis Pasteur designed flasks with an S shape that let air in but prevented other things from coming in. He then boiled water in them to kill the bacteria. After boiling, there was no more bacteria that grew. After he removed the neck, however, bacteria started growing. This disproved spontaneous generation.
