Page 44 - Once Upon a Time There Was Darwinism

Once Upon a Time
There Was Darwinism

More careful scientists
were able to see that all these
ideas were wrong. The Italian sci-
entist Francisco Redi (1626-1697)

was the first to do controlled exper-
iments in this regard. Using the
isolation method, he discov-
ered that maggots on meat
Lazzaro Spallanzani did not come into being spon-

taneously, but developed from
eggs deposited by flies. Redi proved
that life could not come from inanimate matter, but
only from other life—a view that came to be known as biogenesis.

The name given to the spontaneous generation of life was abiogene-
sis.
The scientific argument between supporters of biogenesis and
abiogenesis was continued into the 18th century by John Needham
(1713-1781) and Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799). Each of them
boiled a piece of meat, then isolated it. Needham observed that
maggots appeared on the meat and took this as proof for abiogene-
sis. Spallanzani repeated the same experiment, but boiled the meat
for a longer time. In this way, all organic life forms on the meat
were destroyed and as a result, no maggots appeared on it. So even
though Spallanzani had invalidated the theory of abiogenesis,

many people did not believe him; saying that Spallanzani had
boiled the meat so long that he killed the "vital power"
within it.

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