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===Partisans of [[Spontaneous generation]] vs. [[Pasteur]]===
*In the second half of the 19.century [[Louis Pasteur]] was engaged in a dispute with [[evolutionist]]s of his day over the speculations on [[spontaneous generation]] of living organisms. Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de [[Buffon]], held to the doctrine of spontaneous generation and in his theory of organic molecules declared that after the death of biological organism and consequent body's decomposition, the organic molecules survive and reunite themselves thus spontaneously form a multitude of small organized bodies. M. Michelet affirmed that drop of sea-water, which contains a bit of "inanimate nitritic matter" evolves bit by bit gradually reaching the level of insects, and then, after a hundred of thousand years, the level of apes, and finally of Man himself. He further remarked that Harvey dared not dispute this ancient belief that the life comes from "the dissolute elements of previous life". Michelet also called it a theory which "has been revived with rigor by experiments of M. Pouchet". Pouchet, the Director of Rouen Museum of Natural History told Academy of Sciences as its active member that he had succeeded in producing experiments which demonstrated, "beyond the shadow of doubt", the evolution of microscopic organized beings that entered the world without germs, and thus without parents resembling to themselves.{{#tag:ref|The experiment itself consisted in having a liter-flask, filled with boiling water, hermetically sealed and inverted over a vat of mercury; once the water was completely cooled, the flask was uncorked below the metal's surface and a half-liter of pure oxygen (extracted from chemical compound) was introduced as the vital component of air necessary to the lives of microscopic beings. At the end a bit of hay, previously heated beyond 100°C for 30 minutes (environment unsuited to the appearance of microscopic beings), was placed into the flask as infusion of organic material (nourishment) below the surface of the mercury. A fully developed mold appearing at the infusion after 8 days was then declared as proof that the atmosphere didn't serve as the vehicle for these germs but that they have evolved by spontaneous generation from organic molecules of non-living hay.|group=note}} All these naturalist scientists were publicly celebrated while Pasteur was grossly vilified both by contemporary scientific establishment and media for his support of [[Germ theory|the germ theory of disease]] claiming i.a. that dust in atmospheric gases can be bearer of the germs for primitive organisms. ''La presse'' wrote in 1860 that "the experiments you quote, M. Pasteur, will turn against you ... The world into which you wish to take us is really too fantastic."<ref>{{cite web
|title=Louis Pasteur
|publisher=History Learning Site
|url=http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/louis_pasteur.htm
|accessdate=02-03-2013
|quote="I am afraid that the experiments you quote, M.Pasteur, will turn against you. The world into which you wish to take us is really too fantastic."  La Presse, 1860}}</ref> Yet it was Pasteur, who in his historical lecture at the Sorbonne university in Paris on April 7, 1864 experimentally demonstrated that the belief of his opponents was "a mere chimera" and that they were deluded by their poorly conducted experiments when error in their experiment was introduced by using the mercury contaminated by everywhere-present dust which brought the germs into the flask. He showed that when experiment repeated with flask that has the curved neck and surrounding air is not extremely turbulent, the hay alias infusion in the flask remains completely unchanged, i.e. without any mold (living micro-organisms) developed even when left so for arbitrarily long time. Pasteur declared that it remained thus because he had deprived it "of the one thing not given to Man to produce, ... of [[life]] itself" and that the doctrine of spontaneous generation suffered the mortal blow inflicted by this experiment.<ref>{{cite web
|title= On Spontaneous Generation; An address delivered by Louis Pasteur at the "Sorbonne Scientific Soirée" of April 7, 1864
|publisher=Pasteur Brewing
|accessdate=03.February 2013
|url=http://www.pasteurbrewing.com/Articles/spontaneous-generation/on-spontaneous-generation.html}}</ref>