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Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized that certain forms, such as fleas , could arise from inanimate matter such as dust, or that maggots could arise from dead flesh.
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. Traditional religion attributed the origin of life to deities who created the natural world. Spontaneous generation, the first naturalistic theory of abiogenesis, goes back to Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy, and continued to have support in Western scholarship until the 19th century. [15]
One ancient view of the origin of life, from Aristotle until the 19th century, is of spontaneous generation. [19] This theory held that "lower" animals such as insects were generated by decaying organic substances, and that life arose by chance. [20] [21] This was questioned from the 17th century, in works like Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia ...
Spontaneous generation – a principle regarding the spontaneous generation of complex life from inanimate matter, which held that this process was a commonplace and everyday occurrence, as distinguished from univocal generation, or reproduction from parent(s).
Lazzaro Spallanzani (Italian pronunciation: [ˈladdzaro spallanˈtsaːni]; 12 January 1729 – 11 February 1799) was an Italian Catholic priest (for which he was nicknamed Abbé Spallanzani), biologist and physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions, animal reproduction, and animal echolocation. [2]
From here, is where the study of the origin of life branched. Those who accepted Pasteur's rejection of spontaneous generation began to develop the theory that under (unknown) conditions on a primitive Earth, life must have gradually evolved from organic material. This theory became known as abiogenesis, and is the currently accepted one. On ...
[5] [6] From the two experiments, Pasteur concluded that the atmospheric dust carried germs responsible for the 'spontaneous generation' in his broths. [6] Thus, Pasteur's work provided proof that the emergent growth of bacteria in nutrient broths is caused by biogenesis rather than some form of spontaneous generation.
Preformationism, especially ovism, was the dominant theory of generation during the 18th century. It competed with spontaneous generation and epigenesis, but those two theories were often rejected on the grounds that inert matter could not produce life without God's intervention.