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Spontaneous Generation, Part One: Mice and Grain · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
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  Speaker 2: always so much for joining us today.
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  Speaker 3: We're turning the frogs Gay.
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  Speaker 2: We are absolutely, we are absolutely over the moon to
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  Speaker 2: introduce you to our man, our myth, our legend, our
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  Speaker 2: super producer, mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 3: I am here and I am known to spontaneously combust
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  Speaker 3: Is that what we're talking about today? Yeah? Sort of.
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  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I said we're turning the frogs Gap. Sorry,
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  Speaker 4: that was really inappropriate outburst. I do want to apologize.
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  Speaker 4: It's just the idea of spontaneous generation and the notion
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  Speaker 4: that frogs can change sex and all of that stuff,
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  Speaker 4: and it made me think of old Alex Jones. I
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  Speaker 4: wonder how he's doing. He's okay, not well's love to
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  Speaker 4: see it, I said.
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  Speaker 2: So I am going by Ben Bollen. These days, you
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  Speaker 2: are called Noel Brown. That makes this Ridiculous History. We
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  Speaker 2: are talking, uh this week about a thing called spontaneous generation,
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  Speaker 2: which is familiar to any fan of improvisation. It is
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  Speaker 2: not to be confused with spontaneous combustion. Now, sorry Max, Yeah, no, Noel,
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  Speaker 2: have you ever heard of the idea of spontaneous combustion.
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  Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, just the idea that someone could inexplicably burst
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  Speaker 4: into flames sounds pretty terrifying.
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  Speaker 2: Like in that old NBA game where you get.
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  Speaker 3: That he's on fire.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that requires badass balling, though this does not even
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  Speaker 4: require that. This would just be like your walking around
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  Speaker 4: and then boom, you're on fire. But not in a
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  Speaker 4: cool dunk kind of way.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, not with that he's on fire, which I love.
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  Speaker 3: Uh smash the rim right.
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  Speaker 2: Spontaneous combustion is not to be confused with spontaneous generation,
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  Speaker 2: the idea that the presence of certain things in certain
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  Speaker 2: locations can suddenly produce other things. But the issue is
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  Speaker 2: non living things produce living organisms.
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  Speaker 4: If you want to use Biblical terms, you could go
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  Speaker 4: with beget right, yes, begets why?
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  Speaker 2: Or what? Yeah? Like the worst part of the Torah
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  Speaker 2: and the Bible.
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  Speaker 4: For sure, the part with all the names and all
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  Speaker 4: the gas gets a little confusing. But it is interesting though,
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  Speaker 4: because at the end of the day, the discussion of
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  Speaker 4: spontaneous generation as a concept sort of pre dating the
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  Speaker 4: rise of modern science, is a conversation about the meaning
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  Speaker 4: of life.
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  Speaker 2: I agree with that, you know what I mean, yes,
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  Speaker 2: I agree one hundred percent, because what we are going
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  Speaker 2: to study here in ridiculous history this week is really
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  Speaker 2: a noble aspiration, an attempt to understand the world. So
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  Speaker 2: spontaneous generation argues that, for instance, this is one of
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  Speaker 2: the most famous examples, there was an idea for much
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  Speaker 2: of human history that you could take pieces of food, right,
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  Speaker 2: bread or cheese, etc. You could wrap it in rags,
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  Speaker 2: you could put it in a corner of a cellar,
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  Speaker 2: and then boom, it would produce mice.
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  Speaker 3: Produce mice.
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  Speaker 4: And the thing that strikes me here this is a
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  Speaker 4: discussion of the difference between causation and correlation.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, right, yeah, you're one hundred percent on board. Someone
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  Speaker 2: give that guy a.
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  Speaker 4: Piece of cheese, a plushy and I have a piece
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  Speaker 4: of cheese just for a treat. A little piece of
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  Speaker 4: salami you should.
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  Speaker 2: Get for a prize, you should get one of those
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  Speaker 2: cheesehead hats, yeah, that people wear.
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  Speaker 4: With a little with a rattue type mouse perched inside
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  Speaker 4: of it telling me what to do, ordering me around.
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  Speaker 2: So it might look silly. In twenty twenty four, the
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  Speaker 2: idea of spontaneous generation, it's kind of like, I guess
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  Speaker 2: The most recent analog is that if you leave two
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  Speaker 2: microphones in an empty room, podcasters will naturally appear and
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  Speaker 2: start a show.
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  Speaker 4: Everybody knows that is you summon us. But we can't
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  Speaker 4: stay away. We got to talk into those things, right,
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  Speaker 4: They're like beetle juice, But you don't even have to
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  Speaker 4: say beetle juice one from the show up next.
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  Speaker 3: If you say it a third time, I swear you're
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  Speaker 3: dead to me.
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  Speaker 2: Guys Quist rules. Also, it sounds, it might sound ridiculous,
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  Speaker 2: but until about the seventeen hundreds, this idea of spontaneous
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  Speaker 2: generation the prevailing scientific explanation for the origin of life, Like,
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  Speaker 2: why was this such a big deal? Where does it
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  Speaker 2: come from? Why is it considered? And we are being
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  Speaker 2: diplomatic here largely incorrect today. No, we have a great
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  Speaker 2: research associate, doctor Z of Legend. Yeah, and he hipped
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  Speaker 2: us to a fantastic exploration of this. And I think
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  Speaker 2: that's our that's sort of our north star this week.
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  Speaker 3: And what do you say?
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  Speaker 4: We also make this our cold open and then when
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  Speaker 4: we return, we will dive into these murky pseudo scientific waters.
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  Speaker 2: And we have returned, folks. Spontaneous generation is and you
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  Speaker 2: know for the time it was an excellent, very logical
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  Speaker 2: explanation and Noel, as we see, this does not originate
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  Speaker 2: from Western philosophers. If we go back to ancient China, gosh,
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  Speaker 2: if we go back to Babylonia, we see a lot
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  Speaker 2: of the same kind of if then something that's right.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and the source that you mentioned, I just want
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  Speaker 4: to go ahead and sight right off the rip comes
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  Speaker 4: from a publication with a lovely acronym SIM with maybe
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  Speaker 4: a soft B at the end, which stands for the
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  Speaker 4: news magazine of the Society of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology.
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  Speaker 3: This comes from a fantastic paper.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it's really more than an article called Spontaneous
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  Speaker 4: Generation an Origin of Life Concepts from Antiquity to the Presence.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And look, folks, if you go back to
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  Speaker 2: the Shong dynasty, which was around sixteen hundred to ten
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  Speaker 2: fifty BCE, you will see earlier arguments for spontaneous generation.
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  Speaker 2: You will also see ancient documents from the Indian subcontinent
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  Speaker 2: that already kind of assume, Hey, where do these aphids
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  Speaker 2: come from? Aphids the insects, they say, well, they're generated
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  Speaker 2: from bamboo. And if you have too much soil or dirt,
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  Speaker 2: or were being honest, poop around. Then flies will grow
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  Speaker 2: from that naturally.
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  Speaker 4: And you could see how that might be a logical conclusion.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I had an issue in my
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  Speaker 4: basement where there was blockage in my cleanouts and the
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  Speaker 4: outside like that the tube that can get filled with
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  Speaker 4: muck and debris during rainfall if you don't have it covered.
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  Speaker 4: And idiotically, I did not have mine cover for a
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  Speaker 4: time because the long guy broke the lid and I
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  Speaker 4: did not realize it, and I didn't fix it, and
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  Speaker 4: I had some sewage backing up into my garage.
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  Speaker 2: Guy lawn, not long guy, a long. I just liked
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  Speaker 2: the idea of the long guy.
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  Speaker 4: He was a bit long. He was a bit of
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  Speaker 4: a long boy. But I just when all of a
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  Speaker 4: sudden there was this slight sewage issue.
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  Speaker 3: It started to generate again.
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  Speaker 4: Not knowing the science behind it, one might logically come
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  Speaker 4: to this conclusion sewerflies.
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  Speaker 3: They were never there before.
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  Speaker 4: Now all of a sudden, there's a little bit of
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  Speaker 4: poop in the basement and then there's sewerflies. One could
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  Speaker 4: easily assume, without a little bit more information, that the
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  Speaker 4: poop begats the sewerflies.
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  Speaker 2: Begat the goat, the goat, and this is not an
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  Speaker 2: original sin of science. Babylonian clay tablets that come from
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  Speaker 2: eighteen hundred to six hundred BCE, they say, oh, look, guys,
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  Speaker 2: we all know the score river mud makes worms. That's
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  Speaker 2: the only reason worms came to be. And then if
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  Speaker 2: you go to the Greek natural philosopher an Aximander of Militus,
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  Speaker 2: he is the first recognized in the in the Western
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  Speaker 2: discourse as a fan of spontaneous generation.
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  Speaker 4: Uh.
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  Speaker 2: And he had a book called on Nature where he
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  Speaker 2: argued that life inevitably develops all of a sudden from
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  Speaker 2: non living matter.
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  Speaker 3: That's right.
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  Speaker 4: It's interesting too because he was a big proponent of
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  Speaker 4: these elemental I guess aspects of nature of the universe,
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  Speaker 4: very very captain planet, earth, wind.
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  Speaker 3: Fire, watch, or hearts.
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  Speaker 2: He didn't have did have heart?
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  Speaker 4: An Examander had had heart, I think as a person,
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  Speaker 4: but not as one of the elements. He was dealing
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  Speaker 4: mainly with water, earth, fire, and air, and considering these
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  Speaker 4: to be these sort of primordial elements of the universe
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  Speaker 4: and of the formation of life. And it reminds me
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  Speaker 4: a lot of another school of pseudoscientific thought from antiquity,
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  Speaker 4: the idea of humors, the different things in the body,
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  Speaker 4: contained in the body that leads to various maladies, you know,
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  Speaker 4: bile and then what have you, the different humors that
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  Speaker 4: needed to be leeched out or bled out or whatever.
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  Speaker 4: It's very, very similar in terms of like jumping to conclusions.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, he had a pupil who went with them in
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  Speaker 2: speaking and going with people follow us. There as always joking.
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  Speaker 2: Earlier there was not heart, but he had a heart
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  Speaker 2: as a person. When he was proposing this elemental nature
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  Speaker 2: of the universe and he saw a hierarchical organization of elements,
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  Speaker 2: he said, look, the universe is primarily chaos. It's always
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  Speaker 2: in chaotic motion. However, you have to also consider, in
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  Speaker 2: addition to water, earth, fire, and air, there are intervene
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  Speaker 2: factors wet and dry, hot and cold. He's trying to
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  Speaker 2: explain the world as encountered, and he says, look, when
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  Speaker 2: these things all interact, they generate a Ghostbusters sort of goop,
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  Speaker 2: a terrestrial slime, primordial ooze right right right. And obviously
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  Speaker 2: if you watch Ghostbusters too, it's a clear shout out
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  Speaker 2: to the Greek natural philosopher an Aximander of Militis. He
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  Speaker 2: has a pupil, no guy named an Aximinse, who proposes, look,
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  Speaker 2: these elements are not created equal. Air brings life and
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  Speaker 2: air in Doow's living creatures with motion and thought.
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  Speaker 4: And then we have someone coming from a little bit
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  Speaker 4: more of an artistic side of these sorts of conclusions,
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  Speaker 4: Xenophones of Colophon, who is a poet and described fossil
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  Speaker 4: imprints of plants and animals in his work and jumped
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  Speaker 4: to the conclusion that the world had changed over time,
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  Speaker 4: suggesting something akin to evolution.
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  Speaker 3: Really, I mean like a cycle of life.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, if we fast forward, then we see implidoples of Erigento,
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  Speaker 2: who says, all right, this idea of spontaneous generation, they
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  Speaker 2: called it generatio spontanea. This comes from the four elements.
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  Speaker 2: And he says, earth, water, fire, and air have combined
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  Speaker 2: in different ways, and the ways in which they combine
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  Speaker 2: over time can yield either cohesion or chaos in different
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  Speaker 2: life forms.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 4: We also hear from a bit of a more well
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  Speaker 4: known figure in Aristotle, the Greek scientists and full and
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  Speaker 4: just all around thinky type fellow who theorized a lot
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  Speaker 4: about reproduction, about the creation of life, man, animals, et cetera.
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  Speaker 4: But his colleague and successor you probably have also heard
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  Speaker 4: of Theophrastus, maybe not quite as.
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  Speaker 3: Big of a hit.
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  Speaker 4: He was a little bit more focused in studying plants
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  Speaker 4: and minerals. So while Aristotle in Historia Animalium and Degeneratition
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  Speaker 4: Animalium posited that bivalves, which are I believe like mollusks,
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  Speaker 4: you know, and snails were generated sprang forth from mud scallops,
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  Speaker 4: on the other hand, from sand uh and.
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  Speaker 3: Eels from earthworms. That's an interesting leap.
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  Speaker 2: It's kind of like the idea, you know, you find
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  Speaker 2: the thing where it exists, it must have been created
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  Speaker 2: by that environment.
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  Speaker 4: Well, and given the lack of psi antific technology and understanding,
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  Speaker 4: they were doing the best they could with what they had.
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  Speaker 4: And these are very intelligent people. And it is fascinating
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  Speaker 4: to go through the great thinkers of antiquity, whether they
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  Speaker 4: be philosophical or scientific. I think the philosophical thinkers tend
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  Speaker 4: to hold a little more water and are able to
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  Speaker 4: kind of be applied to the modern day a little
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  Speaker 4: bit more because those types of things can be sort
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  Speaker 4: of adapted, whereas a scientific theory saying that you know,
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  Speaker 4: eels come from earthworms. Given enough time, study and technology
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  Speaker 4: can pretty easily be debunked, but philosophical.
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  Speaker 3: Concepts can be a little bit more applicable.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I like that because when we're debating philosophical concepts,
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  Speaker 2: we're looking at abstract interactions, right, We're looking at logic
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  Speaker 2: and calculus, and those things are able to hold true
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  Speaker 2: as almost said protean. But as you know, like platonic forms, right,
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  Speaker 2: the X plus they equal z is a thing that
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  Speaker 2: can be applied to multiple very specific iterations. And Aristotle's
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  Speaker 2: view had a tremendous impact and supported a strong belief
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  Speaker 2: in the concept of spontaneous generation that lasted for at
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  Speaker 2: least two thousand years. Even if you fast forward you'll
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  Speaker 2: see that. You'll see that notable architects and engineers are
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  Speaker 2: citing Aristotle when they say, hey, we got to do
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  Speaker 2: They didn't call it fun shue, but they were kind
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: of doing a func stue thing. They said, look, our
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  Speaker 2: libraries have to face east so that they can get
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  Speaker 2: the morning sun, because if we face the entrance to
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  Speaker 2: the library on the south or the west, we'll get
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  Speaker 2: the winds that worms that are bad for books.
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  Speaker 4: Worms are the natural enemy of books. Everybody knows that. No,
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  Speaker 4: I don't know about that. But it's interesting too when
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  Speaker 4: you think about the facing of structures, Like my house,
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  Speaker 4: for example, doesn't have particularly good access to morning lights.
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  Speaker 4: So if I put plants in certain parts of the house,
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  Speaker 4: they die. And I only just kind of took me
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  Speaker 4: a minute to realize that, like, you really need to
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  Speaker 4: find the part of the house that is facing the
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  Speaker 4: morning sun. And then once I moved the plants to
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  Speaker 4: that side of the house, life began to flourish. So again,
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  Speaker 4: without knowing how this stuff works exactly, you're kind of
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  Speaker 4: left with just sort of a cause and effect, or
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  Speaker 4: left with just sort of trying things out and seeing
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  Speaker 4: what works. And while facing the library in that direction,
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  Speaker 4: maybe it didn't directly have an impact on worms being generated,
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  Speaker 4: it might have had an impact on conditions that would
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  Speaker 4: have been more suitable for the creation of worms for
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  Speaker 4: them to flourish.
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  Speaker 2: This brings us to one of the most important parts
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  Speaker 2: of this week's exploration, Fellow ridiculous historians, the people of
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  Speaker 2: the past. And I feel like I have to say
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  Speaker 2: this all the time. The people of the past were
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  Speaker 2: no more less less intelligent, nor were they more intelligent
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  Speaker 2: than you and everyone you have met here. As we
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  Speaker 2: record in twenty twenty four, humans haven't even figured out
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  Speaker 2: the calendar. What we're looking at is some of the
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  Speaker 2: great thinkers of the time trying to understand the world
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  Speaker 2: around them, and honestly, with the resources they had, they
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  Speaker 2: did a bang up job. What Aristotle's really talking about.
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  Speaker 2: Another another fancier word for spontaneous generation would be abiogenesis,
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  Speaker 2: the theoretical natural process by which life arises from non
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  Speaker 2: living matter. And get this, folks, outside of the pan
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  Speaker 2: spermia theory, no one has figured out to date how
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  Speaker 2: life began as a thing on the planet Earth. So
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  Speaker 2: lest we cast stones on philosophers of old, let's please
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  Speaker 2: remember that those folks were the scientists of their day,
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  Speaker 2: and abiogenesis is something that people wrestle with even now
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  Speaker 2: in the modern evenings. We owe a lot to Arabic translations.
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  Speaker 2: For a long time, the Arabic speaking world was the
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  Speaker 2: center of intellectualism in the Near East or Western Asia
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  Speaker 2: and Western Europe or Europe overall. So it was they
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  Speaker 2: who bought the idea of abiogenesis or spontaneous general to
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  Speaker 2: Western Europe. Via Arabic translation, and it like if you
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  Speaker 2: go back to the twelve hundreds, the thirteenth century, that's
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  Speaker 2: when Latin translations of these ideas become available. And some
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  Speaker 2: of your favorite historical figures were ten toes down on this.
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  Speaker 4: That's right, even though Willie shakes himself, William Shakespeare mentions
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: the idea that snakes and crocodiles were in fact formed
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  Speaker 4: from the you know, muddy soils of the of the
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  Speaker 4: delta in the Nile.
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  Speaker 2: Also our buddy Thomas A Tommy A Thomas Aquinas. It's
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Thomas As, yes, yes, best known as the creator of Dessauni.
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  Speaker 4: True, but yeah, a lot of this stuff sticks around
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  Speaker 4: for a while. And because of the cultures that kind
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: of originated some of these thoughts and then also responsible
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: for spreading of everything from theology to science to philosophy,
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: and that stuff got picked up and telephoned its way
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  Speaker 4: around the world.
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  Speaker 2: And here we want to give a special shout out
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  Speaker 2: to the scholar Edna Maki Nixon k nis k e
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  Speaker 2: m who points out that we do have to exercise
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  Speaker 2: empathy with people in these situations. Right, So we're about
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  Speaker 2: in the twelve hundreds and this author says quote, it
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  Speaker 2: is well for us to consider, however, that the theory
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  Speaker 2: of spontaneous generation, it did not have to, in other words,
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  Speaker 2: rise to the forefront. Anybody walked around, they heard about
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  Speaker 2: spontaneous generation, and they would say, yeah, I've seen bad fruit,
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  Speaker 2: I've seen bad meat. All of a sudden, now I
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  Speaker 2: see flies, I see maggots. You know, how did I
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  Speaker 2: not see it before? How did I see it now?
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  Speaker 2: Obviously Lee, something is at play, and they don't have
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  Speaker 2: germ theory, right, they don't have microscopes.
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  Speaker 4: And so it's like I was saying with the I mean,
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  Speaker 4: these are You're right to your point about microscopes. Things
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  Speaker 4: are tiny in terms of the eggs and the tiny
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  Speaker 4: creatures that lay the eggs. But you know, that's why
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  Speaker 4: I mentioned the whole thing with the sewer flies. And
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  Speaker 4: like my basement situation, if I was not, you know,
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  Speaker 4: endowed with a minor amount of scientific you know know how,
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  Speaker 4: which is not much to say. I'm not a scientist
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  Speaker 4: by a long shot, but I know enough to know
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  Speaker 4: that those flies did not come from the sewery stuff,
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  Speaker 4: the poop, you know, I know that they are attracted
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  Speaker 4: to those types of conditions and that is what allows
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  Speaker 4: them to flourish through reproduction, you.
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  Speaker 3: Know, in terms of laying of eggs and then hatching
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  Speaker 3: of eggs.
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  Speaker 2: And so fast forward further. Let's get to you know,
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  Speaker 2: let's get to like the sixteenth century or so. We
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  Speaker 2: see that a lot of folks in Europe, a lot
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  Speaker 2: of boffins are picking up on this idea and they
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: they absolutely dig it. That's a dig for Worm's joke.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: It'll be funnier in our weird sports episode.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: A hand dug American worm.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, there's a guy named van Helmont. He's a
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Belgian physician and he was actually pretty good at chemistry.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: He got past the rubicon of when alchemy transforms into chemistry.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: And this guy, this is the example is said in
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: earlier he totally believes. Again he's one of the smartest
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: people in his area at the time. He totally believes
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: that he has seen rats spontaneously generate from bags of
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: grains and old rags. And then we have to also
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: mention not everybody cottoned to this prevailing theory of the time.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: There were a lot of folks who said, hang on,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: you can't just say that things created stuff as you
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: were saying earlier, correlation is not causation. Right, Just because
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: there are Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas, it doesn't mean
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: that someone singing, Ah, what's the good Love Me Tenders?
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Ago when Yeah, it doesn't mean that every time someone
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: in a karaoke bar and Las Vegas sings love Me
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Tender and Elvis impersonator is born. This is not my
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: best comparison, but I I think it holds. Yeah, I do.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: And and what also holds is that at this time
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: there were advances. There were beginning to be advances, if
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: not necessarily in like the kind of technology that we
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: think of today in terms of lab tech, but in
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: the observations and ability to kind of put some puzzle
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: pieces together, at least beginning to there were many more
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: scientists that were accepting theories that leaned much more on
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: the idea of propagation rather than spontaneous generation, the idea
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: that the egg or sperm contained the abilities within to
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: form new individuals which were able to grow given the
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: proper circumstances.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is where we see the noble story
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: of the humans writ large, because when we're talking about
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: why spontaneous generation as a theory is not currently accepted
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: as fact. What we're really doing is exploring the evolution
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: of how to ask questions scientific inquiry. Today we call
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: it the scientific method.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: So what's the vast forward? Just a bit more?
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: Like you said, been to Francisco Ready, who was a
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: court physician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, A fellow
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: by the name of Ferdinand Medici of the Mediici Medachis.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: You may have heard of.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: He was also a member of the Academy of Experiments
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: in Florence, Italy. We know, Italy was responsible for this
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: Enlightenment kind of thinking, you know, which was a flourishing
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: of just thought that created, you know, some of the
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: greatest advances in literature, science, philosophy.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: This academy was a big part of that. They'd been
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: organized by a.
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: Group of Galileo Galiles former students, and it was very
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: much a signpost of this new type of enlightenment thinking.
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: And Ready was a big conductor of some very very
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: well thought out and scientifically rigorous etymological studies that he
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: chronicles in a book called Experiments on the Generation of Insects.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: In this work he.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: Used a very rigorous form of scientific method in order
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: to conduct his experiments, which today would be looked at
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: as being pretty modern. And just want to call back
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: to the source that Ben mentioned earlier, Eastern Illinois University,
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: the Keep and a paper titled The Fallen Rise of
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: Spontaneous Generation Theory by Edna Mackie Kniskern.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: And this was, or this, i should say, paved the
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: way for what we call the scientific method today. So
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: everybody put your grade school boffen had on and realize, please,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: this was bleeding edge science and philosophy. And when you
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: get to the when you get to the top tier
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: of science and philosophy, there's a heck of a Venn diagram.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: So no, what say we round, Robin? This will give
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: you the steps. Here's the first one. Let's say, Max,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: can we get some like I'm figuring stuff out in
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: medieval Europe?
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Perfect? All right?
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: So that's our you know, yeah, thank you for the loot,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: dear Max. Our first step is observation, what there are
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: flies around meat caucuses at the butcher shop?
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, the old z butcher shop. This is the
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: first step. You have observed something with thine own eyes,
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: which then lead to the formation in thy mind palace
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: of a question. Which is where do the flies come from?
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: Does rotting needs turn into or produce the flies? Not
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: going to keep his voice up for the whole round robin,
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: but I think, yeah, there you go.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: And there there are seven steps, is boff and still
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: the third wood Max, let me get a turn in
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: the music. The old hypothesis or HYPOTHESI they might have called, right, sure, yeah,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: the rotten meat does not turn into flies. It seems
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: to be only flies can make more flies. And so
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: we've seen what's happening. We asked ourselves why we said,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: maybe we have an answer. How do we test the answer?
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: So I guess I've always kind of thought, is the
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: hypothesis and the prediction is sort of being one and
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: the same, But here they are kind of listed as
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: two different steps, which I think makes sense. The hypothesis
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: is that rotten meat doesn't turn into flies, only flies
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: can make more flies, like we said, so that leads
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: us to a prediction that would be the thing that
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: can be tested. The prediction being if meat cannot turn
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: into flies, rotting meat in a sealed fly proof he
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: should not produce flies or maggots.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: And now so we're at four. So now we get
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: to number five, which is how do we test our hypothesis?
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: How do we test our prediction? Well, we need a trial, right,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: and so what we would do here and I'm not
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: going to do the voice because I really respect this part.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: What we do here is we create two different situations.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: If we assume that wide mouthed jars each having a
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: piece of meat, are you know if we if we
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: keep those together and we make everything the same, they're
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: stored in the same place. The only difference is there
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: is one variable. Our control group will be the jars
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: of meat without lids. This means the meat is exposed
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: to whatever whatever is happening in the butchery. And then
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: our experimental group, the part where we test our hypothesis,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: means that we have a couple of jars that are
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: sealed up tight with lids. And then if we want
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: to get super cool with it, we have another experimental group.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: We try a middle ground.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Right, we make a permeable or a porous somewhat porous lid.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: We just place gauze or cheese cloth. They made it.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: They may have called it over there, so that's fine.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: We start to test our questions and then we try
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: to replicate our questions. And then and I know, I know,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I know, I know at least twelve of you, fellow
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: ridiculous historians are excited about this part. We figure out
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: the results.
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, through the study of data sets that are generated
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: by each of these different groups of experiments, these different trials.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: So the what we're looking for, of course, are the
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: presence or absence of flies and maggots that are related
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: to each of these different scenarios, whether it be the
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: open to the air jars, the ones that are air tight,
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: or the ones with a permeable piece of some kind
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: of cloth on top. So, in the controlled group of jars,
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: which would be the wide open ones, flies can be
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: observed visually entering the jars. Then, given a little bit
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: of time, one could observe maggots beginning to wriggle around
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: in there, followed by more flies than in the gauze
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: covered jars.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: No flies were.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: Seen in the jars, but they are observed hanging around
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: on the outside because they smell that sweet, sweet funk
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: of decaying meat.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as any slip knot fan knows, right. This leads
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: us all to our very favorite part conclusions, only flies
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: can make more flies. We see that as you were
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: pointing out nol with an aggregation. In comparison of data,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the uncovered jars seem to produce more flies. Our conclusion
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: being that flies from somewhere else came inside without that
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: barrier and laid eggs on the meat. Maggots hatch from
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: those eggs that the flies have made, and they grow
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: into more adult flies. Only flies can make more flies.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: The adult flies lay eggs on the gauze, the porous
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: border of those jars, and those eggs are small enough
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: to drop through your cheesecloth or what have you, onto
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: the meat. But in the sealed jars, none of those
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: variables can enter, and so you don't see spontaneous generation.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: This is the scientific method seven steps. As you said,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: we separated them out a bit to be nerdy. We
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: hope that everybody listening here approves of nerdom.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: I would hope, so gosh, if not, then what are
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: you doing here? But no, please stay.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: But yeah, this led to a sea change you know,
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: in public perception of what led to the creation of life,
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: But it wasn't across the board. This was a massive
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: shift in the way people thought about the generation of
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: quote unquote larger organisms you know, and I know flies
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: are not exactly large, but they're certainly larger than bacterium,
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: for example.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Bro Flies are pretty much tied you to smaller organism's right, right, Yeah, exactly,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: So there was still a lot of thinking while it
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: had this thinking had been refined through the scientific method
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: and also, of course, with the.
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: Creation of the innovation of the microscope in the sixteen hundreds,
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: people began to observe all sorts of other, much more
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: microscopic forms of life, and for a time didn't know
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: where the hell they were coming from because they could
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: not observe what had been observed by the naked eye
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: in this previous experiment with the mean.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: And the foy.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: I saw some gross stuff.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, Noel, can you do us as solid and
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: name some of these new very small life forms that
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: were discovered.
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeast, yeasty life forms, fungi, bacteria, like I mentioned, protists,
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: Oh okay.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love I love the protests And yeah, It's true.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: Despite the absolute blast forward in scientific thinking and innovation
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: and observation, there just wasn't yet, even with some of
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: these new technologies, the ability to really get a hold
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: on where these.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: Things were coming from.
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: So spontaneous generation kind of reared its head again with
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: a lot of people assuming that things like molds and
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: fungi and what have you actually sprang forth from things
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: like spoiled food. Spoiled broth, for example, is one that's
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: mentioned in another great piece of work from Northern Arizona
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: University that doctor Z found for us.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Pronounced now do you, of course ye, yes, as is known.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: This is where we're meeting Jean Baptiste Lamark, who proposed
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: his own theory of evolution, which was a I would
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: say it was an attempt to kind of do a
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: DJ Khalid level remix of scientific thought at the time
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: to reconcile these various ideas. And he said, if you
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: he is a predecessor of Darwin. Darwin's great discoveries right
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: sailing on the Beagle where he ate every animal and
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: he encountered that is the first shout out to Jack
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: O'Brien over at Daily Zeitgeist. So our buddy Lamark says, look,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: all things strive for perfection, and as they become closer
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: to perfect new organisms spontaneously arrive to do what corporate
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: America will call backfill. So if yeah, so if the
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: you know, let's say a particular small multicellular organism grows
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: into something larger than a new organism will spontaneously arrive
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: to keep that lion king circle of life going.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: Ah. So yeah, exactly.
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: And I don't think we mentioned this at the top,
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: but Aristotle is still relevant to a lot of these newer,
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: kind of more modern thinkers because while he was a
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: big proponent of spontaneous generation, Aristotle, there were parts of
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: his research and thinking that he laid out in various
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: works that did acknowledge sexual reproduction.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, yeah, Aristotle was Aristotle was not tyrannical
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: in thought. Aristotle was kind of his whole deal, right
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: like that. He was the guy who came in and
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: way before podcast and propagandists became problematic with this. He
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: was a good faith asker saying I'm just asking questions,
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean, like what if this? And
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: then he would sometimes contradict himself and he would say, well,
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: also what if this, Either of these things could be true.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what is true. However, this is as
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: we said, and we always celebrate this a two part episode, correct, oh.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: A preemptive two part episode.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: And you mentioned Jean Baptiste Lamark and his you know,
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: kind of beginnings of theories of evolution, and he really
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: was trying to kind of reconcile some of his thinking
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: with Aristotle's work contained in Scala Nature that he you know,
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: where he kind of laid out this notion of like
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: striving for perfection, which is of course a big part
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: of evolution, the idea of survival of the fittest, about
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: finding the best form, the best ultimate version of a
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: thing over time, and then all of the things that
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: kind of filled in.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: Those spaces underneath.
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: So I do think you're right on the money, Ben,
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: that we wrap up part one of this episode, this
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: very science science y episode of ridiculous history, and offer
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: our huge thanks and shout out to doctor Z Research
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: Associate extraordinaire on this two part journey.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, doctor Z personal thanks to you, sir, hope you
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: are doing well. Big big thanks of course, as well
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: to super producer mister Max Williams our composer Alex Williams,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: who has been sending some updates from the road. I
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: don't know, it might be cool to have Alex back
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: on the show too.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: He's got one hundred percent.
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: She does he's got some some hot takes that Alex
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: Williams love him dearly.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Big big thanks, of course to our favorite mad scientist,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Strickland aka the quizt and obviously Noel, big thanks
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: to brother Dan soft.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: It gota love, good old bds.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Who else, who else? Who else?
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: Oh geez, of course Christoph frasciotis, and he's Jeff COEs
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: here in spirit, aj Bahamas Jacobs the Puzzler. We already
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: mentioned our boy the Quizzer. Long may he rain in infamy.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Oh and I'll say something that might be a hot take,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: fellow ridiculous historians in academia. Don't want to get you mad,
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: but big big thanks to everyone throughout history who was
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: trying to just figure stuff.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: Out doing their best.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: You know, And look, any time you encounter something in
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: your life that is an invention that you think is cool,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: you should also thank the people who came before. They're
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: a big deal. They got a a lot of stuff wrong,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: but they're a big deal.
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: Standing on the shoulders of imperfect giants.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: I think it's really the only way to fly.
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: And you know, I appreciate you mentioning that, Ben, And
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: in that spirit, we will see you next time, folks.
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.