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Spontaneous generation, the generation of living from nonliving matter, was an accepted explanation which explained that under the proper conditions of temperature, time, place, etc., decaying matter simply turns into organic life. This idea dominated scientific thinking until 1846 when Louis Pasteur completely shattered the theory by his experiments. Under controlled laboratory conditions, Pasteur proved that no organic life can emerge from decaying, nonliving mater. The previous notion has not been demonstrated in the test tube …

…air particles are exposed to food such as bread or broth and then are left sitting for a few days, they become filled with living microorganisms. These organisms come from a biological cause, not a generational development. The mice that came out of the rags in the barn was an example of a psychological explanation for reproduction and could not be explained in any other logical way according to the people of the 1600-1700’s.