[Quark2005]

A bit of history of spontaneous generation.

Uh, okay. What maggots spontaneously arising out of rotting meat has to do with this article is quite honestly beyond me.

[Pharmboy]

Well, OK, happy to tell you. First, from an historical point of view re science, I thought it might be interesting to look back at the first wave of spontaneous generation "theories" in terms of how it was thought about. Getting inert molecules to reproduce and thus lay the groundwork for more complex life forms is the modern version...obviously much more sophisticated.

Second, as the article states, some of the first controlled experiments (Spallanzani) were performed to disprove this "theory"--an important milestone in the history of science.

Have a great weekend...

[norton]

I'm way late into this, been a long week/month, but I think the point is that one simplistic "proof" was dethroned by a slightly less simplistic rebuttal.

My guess is that science/environment/reality has a tendancy to make most of our recent and curent "proof" look simplistic as soon as someone is able to take another step.

And that's sort of what this entire debate is all about.