Pasteur Contra Nonsense

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Latest Phase of the Spontaneous-GenerationControversy.
Dr. Bastian, of London,
having submitted to the Paris Academy
of Sciences the results of certain experiments
which, as he maintains, decisively
confirm his theory of spontaneous generation,
Pasteur criticised the English investigator's
methods and conclusions, and
asked for the appointment of a commission
to determine on which side the truth lies.
At the same time he expressed a wish that
Dr. Bastian should in like manner ask the
London Royal Society to appoint a similar
commission. According to the terms of
M. Pasteur's challenge, Dr. Bastian must
obtain, in the presence of competent judges,
bacteria in sterile urine on the addition of liquor
potassse in suitable quantities, the liquor
potassae being prepared from pure potash
with pure water ; or, if made from impure
materials, it must be submitted to a temperature
of 230 for twenty minutes. Dr.
Bastian has accepted the challenge, and
has applied to the Royal Society for the appointment
of the commission. The French
commission is already constituted : it consists
of Milne-Edwards, Dumas, and Boussingault.
The Lancet justly complains
against this selection, on the ground that
all of the three commissioners are more or
less strong supporters of Pasteur's view.
Their bias must inevitably indispose them
toward Bastian's arguments. The Lancet
asks why Fremy or Trecul, or some other
man without bias either way, was not placed
on the commission. The Academy has apparently
made a mistake in this matter ;
perhaps when the comments of the Lancet
are brought to the notice of the members,
a change will be made in the commission.
The Royal Society has not yet named the
members of the English commission.

POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

VOL. XL
MAY TO OCTOBER, 1877.

PAGE 381

Opinions on this article?

Is this related with creationism, just asking.

Would have been in the late 1800's, though this particular aspect is not an issue today. This is just a skirmish in the historical battle between science and non-science.

I have a comment, though it may not be for or against what you wish to hear.

The article demonstrates the persistance of certain bipartitions in human thinking.

Which is sad, because its means we are just spinning our gears in one more way.

I think part of that is due to a desire to be popular within a group one respects. It is easy then to go to an extreme rather than be associated with the crowd of people one doesn't respect.

I suppose so, but all those hundreds of years of wasted arguing when people could be thinking bright and fresh new things... bugs me. If they cannot think together, then they should just ignore each other.

I wonder if the positions each side presses against the other doesnt just cause their adversary to cling more tightly to the dogma of their clique?

i'm confused as to how one could demand a certain set of ingredients before they even had any idea about the roots of life?

Probably so, though this particular argument has only become mainstream in the last 150 years, and heightened in aggression in the 1960s for the USA.

Please, point out what you are referring to.

oooooooooooooh now i get it. i didn't realize that this article was from 1877.


science from 1877 with regards to the study of origins of life is pretty irrelevant.

Keep reading.

"According to the terms of
M. Pasteur's challenge, Dr. Bastian must
obtain, in the presence of competent judges,
bacteria in sterile urine on the addition of liquor
potassse in suitable quantities, the liquor
potassae being prepared from pure potash
with pure water ; or, if made from impure
materials, it must be submitted to a temperature
of 230 for twenty minutes."

but now i realize this was done back in 1877. not quite as clear of a picture of back then as we have now (i mean just the number of missing links found in evolutionary studies alone rather less actual studies of the origin of life). i thought this was stipulations that were going to be followed today in 2008. big difference.

in the article or in the thread? in the thread, you're politicizing the idea that following a less popular "scientific" idea is more noble than a more accepted one....which only works if you're right. and if you're wrong, there'll be many people who'll point it out in the scientific community.

the article itself is fairly irrelevant other than that it was a pissing match back in the 1870s.

they didn't even have electron microscopes back then!

"Would have been in the late 1800's, though this particular aspect is not an issue today"

"Spontaneous generation" is the idea that bacteria, rather than infecting from outside (Pasteur's hypothesis), will spontaneously arise in any suitable medium (the "conventional wisdom" of the day). The challenge was for those opposing Pasteur to find bacteria in a sterile medium with growth materials (which, in a nonsterile medium, would be expected to result in massive bacterial colonies).

Needless to say, the challenge failed - which seems obvious to us today, but was a significant change from the accepted paradigm of the times. Even now, three hundred years after the beginning of the Enlightenment, there are still a significant number of people who fail to understand that science progresses by experiment, not appeal to authority...