Mistakes Made by Society and The Work of Louis Pasteur and Rachel Carson

Held as one of the most highly regarded facts of the scientific community, theories often change with the presentation of new evidence. However, the motivation behind obtaining this new evidence is often overlooked, wrought with political and personal motives guiding the work of scientists, as these scientists are able to make an impact on the rest of the world. Though separated by a century, Louis Pasteur and Rachel Carson offered evidence to solve some of the biggest questions of their time period, with Louis Pasteur effectively concluding the spontaneous generation debate and Rachel Carson promoting awareness of our careless use of DDT and the impact this had on future generations.

By the mid 1800’s, Louis Pasteur was caught up in the spontaneous generation debate after reviewing the contradictory experiments performed by Francesco Redi, John Needham, and Lazarro Spallanzani. Two centuries prior to Pasteur, Redi had argued that spontaneous generation could not occur, supported with experimental evidence. However, only one century prior to Pasteur, John Needham had shown that growth would occur in a flask of sterilized broth, which directly refuted Redi’s claim that spontaneous generation did not occur. Seeing a flaw in Needham’s experiment, Spallanzani repeated the experiment, this time sterilizing the broth and the air present in the flask. Without this source of contamination, the flask remained sterilized, while a similar flask of broth which he left open to the environment began to show signs of growth. In refute of Spallanzani, those who believed in spontaneous generation said that the air carried a necessary “life force” which life may directly come from. One hundred years later, Louis Pasteur joins the debate...

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...n with their work, the needs of society demanded their work be done, whether explicitly stated or not. Society had failed to recognize a potential threat in their time period and the work of these people changed the way people conducted their lives. Without people like Pasteur and Carson to correct the overlooked mistakes made by society, society may crumble under the weight of its own ignorance.

Works Cited

1-9 Spontaneous generation was an attractive theory to many people, but was ultimately disproven.. (2003, January 1). . Retrieved May 8, 2014, from http://www.microbiologytext.com/index.php?module=Book&func=displayarticle&art_id=27

Regis, E. (2008). What is life?: investigating the nature of life in the age of synthetic biology. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Carson, R., & Darling, L. (1962). Silent spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin ;.