Question

Which one of the following experiments suggests that simplest living organisms could not have originated spontaneously from non-living matter?

• A. Microbes did not appear in stored meat
• B. Larvae could appear in decaying organic matter
• C. Microbes appeared from unsterilized organic matter
• D. Meat was not spoiled, when heated and kept sealed in a vessel

Answer 1

The correct option is D Meat was not spoiled, when heated and kept sealed in a vessel

Lazzaro Spallanzani is an Italian scientist, reviewed both Redi's and Needham's data and experimental design and concluded that perhaps Needham's heating of the bottle did not kill everything inside. He constructed his own experiment by placing broth in each of two separate bottles, boiling the broth in both bottles, then sealing one bottle and leaving the other open. Days later, the unsealed bottle was teeming with small living things that he could observe more clearly with the newly invented microscope. The sealed bottle showed no signs of life. This certainly excluded spontaneous generation as a viable theory. Except, it was noted by scientists of the day that Spallanzani had deprived the closed bottle of air and it was thought that air was necessary for spontaneous generation.
Therefore, the correct answer is option D.