AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Louis Pasteur is credited with conclusively disproving the theory of spontaneous generation with his famous swan-neck flask experiment.

Detailed explanation-2: -“Spontaneous generation” was the idea that living organisms can spring into existence from non-living matter. In the late 19th century, in a showdown between chemist Louis Pasteur and biologist Felix Pouchet put on by the French Academy of Sciences, Pasteur famously came up with an experiment that debunked the theory.

Detailed explanation-3: -(i) Swan-necked flask experiment was done by Louis Pasteur. (ii) The early belief of the spontaneous origin of life was disproved by Louis Pasteur.

Detailed explanation-4: -After prolonged incubation the swan necked flask remained free of life, whereas the control flask was teeming with microbial life. Thus, Pasteur succeeded in disproving the spontaneous generation theory because the swan neck of the flask allowed only air, and not the microbes.

Detailed explanation-5: -Though challenged in the 17th and 18th centuries by the experiments of the Italian biologists Francesco Redi and Lazzaro Spallanzani, it was not discredited until the work of the French chemist Louis Pasteur and the Irish physicist John Tyndall in the mid-19th century.