For hundreds of years people thought meat made maggots. Finding out it did not took two scientists, two hundred years, and one very oddly shaped bottle.
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Students will learn how experiments by Francesco Redi and Louis Pasteur challenged spontaneous generation and helped establish the principle of biogenesis, which states that living things come from other living things.
Begin by asking: “If you leave food outside and maggots appear, where did the maggots come from?” Explain that people once believed they came directly from the meat. This idea was called spontaneous generation.
Redi tested this idea using meat in different jars. Later, Pasteur performed an even stronger experiment using his famous swan neck flask. His flask allowed air inside while keeping dust and microorganisms away from the broth. Life appeared only when microorganisms were able to reach it.
Explain that this evidence supported biogenesis.
Science can study how living things reproduce and where new organisms come from today. The Bible takes the question further by identifying God as the Creator and source of life.
Genesis 1 repeatedly describes living things reproducing according to their kinds. This provides a natural connection to the pattern students observe in biogenesis: life produces life.
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Before You Start
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Part One
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Part Two
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