Spontaneous Generation and the Catholic Church

[mikekle]

A crude science. I mean, come on, leave a slice of bread out for a couple weeks. Never let it leave your sight. You’ll get your empirical evidence that nothing comes around and puts the mold there!

This isn’t meant to mock science in the least. Tools have improved over time.

But in 100 yrs, the scientists then will be doing the same thing…obviously that far in the future, they will be looking back at some of the things we consider to be facts or correct right now, but are eventually proven wrong.

I mean, we think ourselves to be pretty scientifically accurate in 2017, but in the view of people living in 2117, Im sure they will be laughing at some of the goofy things we called facts in our time, just as people living in 2217 will be doing with ‘facts’ from 2117…point is, this kind of thing will never stop.

 

[GKC]

“Spontaneous generation or anomalous generation is an obsolete body of thought on the ordinary formation of living organisms without descent from similar organisms.” - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

The idea was that mice, for instance, could appear fully formed out of corn without being born of a mother - no fetus, no egg, no genes, just popped out of thin air as fully formed adults.

Seems silly to us but it’s understandable how it may have appeared that way. Thomas Aquinas argued for it, and for a long period of time most people probably accepted the theory until it was disproved.

Ah, this takes me back to some of my very earliest of reading hobbies, the history of science. Many books. Now almost all astray in the nooks and crannies of the book dungeons, save a few (Crombies’ 2 vol MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN SCIENCE, esp).

The recipe for mice was a little more complicated. One had to wrap the grain (wheat, as I recall, but maybe corn gave you a different sort of mouse) in a soiled shirt, for the right effluvia. The maggots from meat was tested and disproved by Francesco Redi.

No memory at all that this sort of spontaneous generation was taught by the Church.

 

[inocente]

Ah, this takes me back to some of my very earliest of reading hobbies, the history of science. Many books. Now almost all astray in the nooks and crannies of the book dungeons, save a few (Crombies’ 2 vol MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN SCIENCE, esp).

The recipe for mice was a little more complicated. One had to wrap the grain (wheat, as I recall, but maybe corn gave you a different sort of mouse) in a soiled shirt, for the right effluvia. The maggots from meat was tested and disproved by Francesco Redi.

No memory at all that this sort of spontaneous generation was taught by the Church.

In those days, fairies would steal your baby and leave a changeling in its place. But apparently fairies saw the error of their ways and are now reformed characters . Yes, folk beliefs are fascinating.

 

[GKC]

In those days, fairies would steal your baby and leave a changeling in its place. But apparently fairies saw the error of their ways and are now reformed characters . Yes, folk beliefs are fascinating.

Not so much folk tales in this case, as the theories of philosophers, natural philosophers, and pedants in general, trying to figure stuff out, systematically, early on. It was a long-lived belief.

 

[inocente]

Not so much folk tales in this case, as the theories of philosophers, natural philosophers, and pedants in general, trying to figure stuff out, systematically, early on. It was a long-lived belief.

And according to that article from post #19, it seems that for a few it’s still alive.

 

[GKC]

And according to that article from post #19, it seems that for a few it’s still alive.

Takes all kinds. But now it’s folk lore for them.