# Did anyone really believe in Spontaneous Generation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 25, 2010, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645 "2010-05-25T00:59:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/21 "2010-06-18T22:43:48Z")
_American Scientist_ is an excellent magazine, a bit more technical than _Scientific American_ but well within popular readership. Henry Petroski does his column there now, and he’s a favorite of mine. Their book reviews are long and scientifically detailed examinations of current science books. The new issue has an article that talks directly about spontaneous generation and experiments that seemed to confirm it along with Pasteur’s arguments against it. [“Winter 1859” by Robert L. Dorit](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2010/4/winter-1859) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/22 "2010-06-18T23:24:47Z")
Suppose you had been born a thousand years ago. What explanation would you have for the appearance of maggots in dead animals. What would explain the sudden appearance of cicadas years after they had last been seen? It’s been said that before the invention of the magnifying lens people believed sperm cells to contain miniature people that incubated inside women’s bodies. As absurd as it sounds, an explanation of DNA back then might seem more absurd. I’m sure many people believed in spontaneous generation, simply because there were no better theories to put forward. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/23 "2010-06-19T00:55:00Z")
[The Barnacle Goose](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle_Goose), which some believed grew from trees like barnacles on driftwood. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/24 "2010-06-19T02:17:38Z")
> [@](#): > > So if hairyness is correlated with live birth in a few cases, and all the hairy things have a common ancestor, I’ve got a reason to think that all the hairy things give live birth. (And I’d be wrong strictly speaking–witness the Platypus–but I’d be mostly right and the inference is basically sound as long as its conclusion isn’t taken too dogmatically.) Evolution certainly explains the correlation, but it isn’t necessary just for noticing it. Humans, dogs, sheep, cows, pigs, goats, horses, cats… All have hair, all suckle their young, and all give live birth. In fact, any animal that would be known to medieval Europeans that has one of those traits has all three of them. Even if you don’t know _why_ all of those animals are similar, surely it’s not a stretch to conclude that another animal that’s too unfriendly to watch giving birth, but which has hair and suckles its young, probably also reproduces the same way as everything else? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/25 "2010-06-19T03:11:32Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Evolution certainly explains the correlation, but it isn’t necessary just for noticing it. Humans, dogs, sheep, cows, pigs, goats, horses, cats… All have hair, all suckle their young, and all give live birth. In fact, any animal that would be known to medieval Europeans that has one of those traits has all three of them. Even if you don’t know _why_ all of those animals are similar, surely it’s not a stretch to conclude that another animal that’s too unfriendly to watch giving birth, but which has hair and suckles its young, probably also reproduces the same way as everything else? There probably wasn’t much incentive to state the obvious at a time when there wasn’t an explanation for it. Fantastical stories would have drawn a larger audience. Still happens now, even when the actual explanation is known. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/26 "2010-06-19T15:20:23Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Read T.H. White’s\* > > As for people believing in Spontaneous Generation – they certainly did. One thing I found striking about relatively late supporters of the idea is that they _did_ perform careful laboratory experiments, with controls and comparisons, just like we were taught in school, yet they _still_ got results that supported SG. Yet such experimentation, we were taught, was supposed to reveal the truth. Evidently something that looks like the Scientific Method can lead you astray if you aren’t sufficiently careful in your preparation, or are too committed to your beliefs. The difference is not that experimental science always gives the right answer. Rather it is a process of continual correction. Economists, for example, rarely if ever admit that their pet theories are wrong and people never believe that every bubble will burst (or admit that the latest speculative fancy is a bubble). And don’t let me get started on religious beliefs. I just read that in Florida was accused by his opponent of believing in evolution, but he heatedly denied that charge. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/27 "2010-06-19T16:10:34Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I just read that in Florida was accused by his opponent of believing in evolution, but he heatedly denied that charge. [Alabama](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004740-503544.html). There were several threads on this. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/28 "2010-06-19T17:49:09Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > No. So, exactly what is the difference between Abiogenesis and Spontaneous Generation? wiki "In natural science, abiogenesis … or biopoesis is the theory of how life on Earth could have arisen from inanimate matter. " ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/29 "2010-06-21T08:48:27Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > So, exactly what is the difference between Abiogenesis and Spontaneous Generation? Both pertain to generation. Only one posits spontaneity. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/30 "2010-06-21T09:48:05Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Both pertain to generation. Only one posits spontaneity. In what sense of “spontaneous” is abiogenesis is not spontaneous while spontaneous generation is? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/31 "2010-06-21T10:05:52Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > In what sense of “spontaneous” is abiogenesis is not spontaneous while spontaneous generation is? Something is spontaneous if it takes place without external cause. Spontaneous generation says that if you place old rages and seeds in a dark corner you have all the ingredients for the generation of life. Nothing else required. It is literally spontaneous. Abogenesis OTOH says that if you take organic molecules they will gradually, under the influence of outside forces, form more complex molecules which will become progressively complex. Those molecules will then become non-living, self-replicating molecules which will, under the influence of external forces including primarily natural selection, produce living molecules through a series of infinitesimally small changes. It’s not spontaneous generation of life because life only appears initially as a barely alive macromolecule, which itself appeared through through a process chain leading to highly complex, almost living macromolecules. It’s only spontaneous generation in the same sense that starting a fire with a bow is woodpile is spontaneous combustion. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/32 "2010-06-21T11:58:09Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > [The Barnacle Goose](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle_Goose) Did it have barnacle feathers, barnacle wings and a barnacle bill? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/33 "2010-06-21T17:32:15Z")
There’s also the matter that spontaneous generation was assumed to occur on a regular basis: Whenever you left rags out, they would turn into mice, or whatever. Abiogenesis, however, certainly doesn’t happen often, and may well only have happened once. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/34 "2010-06-21T17:37:36Z")
> [@](#): > > The difference is not that experimental science always gives the right answer. Rather it is a process of continual correction. The point is that you can continue to perform such flawed experiments (and so can like-minded others) and keep getting such incorrect positives for spontaneous generation, even with what appears to be scientific controls in place. This isn’t a hypothetical – it _is_ what happened prior to Pasteur’s definitive experiments. And my point was that trying to abide by what appears to be experimentation isn’t by itself enough ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645/35 "2010-06-21T17:40:21Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Did it have barnacle feathers, barnacle wings and a barnacle bill? No, it’s a perfectly ordinary goose, but they thought it cloned itself from trees or something like that. ETA: [Barnacle Bill (song)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle_Bill_(song)) :eek: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-really-believe-in-spontaneous-generation/540645.md?page=1)