Sparks of life : Darwinism and the Victorian debates over spontaneous generation

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Sparks of life : Darwinism and the Victorian debates over spontaneous generation

James E. Strick

Harvard University Press, 2002

1st Harvard University Press pbk. ed.

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注記

Includes bibliographical references (p. 274-275) and index

内容説明・目次

内容説明

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. The Victorian debates, Strick shows, were entwined with the public controversy over Darwin's theory of evolution. While other histories of the debates between 1860 and 1880 have focused largely on the experiments of John Tyndall, Henry Charlton Bastian, and others, Sparks of Life emphasizes previously understudied changes in the theories that underlay the debates. Strick argues that the disputes cannot be understood without full knowledge of the factional infighting among Darwinians themselves, as they struggled to create a socially and scientifically viable form of "Darwinian" science. He shows that even the terms of the debate, such as "biogenesis," usually but incorrectly attributed to Huxley, were intensely contested.

目次

Introduction Early History Needham versus Spallanzani Worms, Molecules, and Evolution Note on Terminology Why Another Study of the Spontaneous Generation Debates? 1 Spontaneous Generation and Early Victorian Science The Standard Story of the British Debates Bastian and Burdon Sanderson Criticisms of Bastian by Lankester and Roberts The Germ Theory of Disease The Role of Heat-Resistant Spores Major Victorian Scientists through the 1860s 2 "Molecular"Theories and the Conversion of Owen and Bennett Brownian Movement and Histological Molecules Owen's Role in Developing Ideas on Spontaneous Generation John Hughes Bennett and "Histological Molecules" Owen's Change and the Darwinians Bennett's Conversion to Spontaneous Generation Further Response to Owen's Conversion 3 Bastian as Rising Star Bastian's Background Bastian Enters the Spontaneous Generation Debate Wallace and Darwin Discuss Bastian Further Support for Bastian 4 Initial Confrontation with the X Club: 1870-1873 Huxley's Tightrope Act Huxley's Attitude toward Young Men of Talent Huxley Turns against Bastian Brownian Movement and Other Rhetorical Devices The Younger Darwinians Bastian, Huxley, and the Royal Society E. Ray Lankester and Bastian 5 Colloids, PleomorphicTheories, and Cell Theories: A State of Flux Thomas Graham and Colloids Conservation of Energy and Correlation of Forces Cell Theory and the Demise of Histological Molecules Brownian Movement Revisited Life Cycles in Infusorial Monads Pleomorphist Theories of Bacteria 6 Germ Theories and the British Medical Community The Cattle Plague of 1865-66 and Germ Theories Tyndall, the Germ Theory, and the Medical Community Support in the Medical Community for Bastian The Pathological Society Debate of April 1875 The Physiological Society 7 Purity and Contamination: Tyndall's Campaign as the Final Blow Tyndall's A Priori Commitments Embarking on the Quest and Recruiting Support The Exact Sciences versus the Biomedical Sciences The X Club and the Royal Society Spores: Tough Allies to Kill Convincing Pasteur: Urine Proves a Weak Ally Conclusions Epilogue, 1880 through 1915 Glossary Timeline Cast of Characters Notes Sources Index

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