Biology Forum › Community › General Discussion › Pasteur’s Experiment
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- March 5, 2008 at 8:51 am #9221
galileonParticipantHi everyone,
I’m a 3rd year Undergrad Physics student, but I love all sciences. I always wanted to learn biology, but O and A Level biology textbooks put me off, but recently I got myself "Biological Science" by Scott Freeman, and I’ve been following the MIT Lectures on Biology at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Biology/7-012 … ourseHome/.
In "Biological Science" Chapter one, it discusses Louis Pasteur’s Experiment. At the end of the chapter, in the exercises section, there is this question:
"Suppose the proponents of spontaneous generation claimed that if Louis Pasteur had waited long enough, the organisms would have spontaneously appeared. Respond to this."
Is anyone familiar with this argument?
Cheers,
Galileon.
- March 5, 2008 at 3:59 pm #82509CatParticipant
I am not familiar with the argument, but I suppose if they waited "long enough", spontaneous generation would have been more difficult to disprove. It is a fact that sometimes contamination does not become apparent for a long time, sealed autoclaved media in Petri dishes stored in the fridge for 6 month spontaneously sprout fungus and bacterial colonies almost overnight. Another example, plant is growing in the culture media (sealed), no apparent contamination for 2 months, then all of a sudden fungus appears growing in the media as well. Where did contamination came from or why was it dormant for so long is unclear.
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