Sparks of life : Darwinism and the Victorian debates over spontaneous generation / James E. Strick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Strick, James Edgar, 1956-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Spontaneous generation--Great Britain--History--Victoria, 1837-1901.

Spontaneous generation.

Evolution (Biology)--Great Britain--History--Victoria, 1837-1901.

Evolution (Biology).

History.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

xi, 283 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2000.

Summary:

How, asks James E. Strick, could spontaneous generation--the idea that living things can suddenly arise from nonliving materials--come to take root for a time (even a brief one) in so thoroughly unsuitable a field as British natural theology? No less an authority than Aristotle claimed that cases of spontaneous generation were to be observed in nature, and the idea held sway for centuries. Beginning around the time of the Scientific Revolution, however, the doctrine was increasingly challenged; attempts to prove or disprove it led to important breakthroughs in experimental design and laboratory techniques, most notably sterilization methods, that became the cornerstones of modern microbiology and sped the ascendancy of the germ theory of disease.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-273) and index.

ISBN:

067400292X

OCLC:

43953976