AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Redi went on to demonstrate that dead maggots or flies would not generate new flies when placed on rotting meat in a sealed jar, whereas live maggots or flies would. This disproved both the existence of some essential component in once-living organisms, and the necessity of fresh air to generate life.

Detailed explanation-2: -However, one of van Helmont’s contemporaries, Italian physician Francesco Redi (1626–1697), performed an experiment in 1668 that was one of the first to refute the idea that maggots (the larvae of flies) spontaneously generate on meat left out in the open air.

Detailed explanation-3: -Louis Pasteur is credited with conclusively disproving the theory of spontaneous generation with his famous swan-neck flask experiment. He subsequently proposed that “life only comes from life.”

Detailed explanation-4: -And so first, what we have is Francesco Redi, who was an Italian scientist in the 1600s, who was the first scientist to challenge or attempt to disprove spontaneous generation. And he showed that fly eggs and maggots do not spontaneously generate from decaying meat.

Detailed explanation-5: -The prize was claimed in 1864 by Louis Pasteur, as he published the results of an experiment he did to disproved spontaneous generation in these microscopic organisms.