The Social, Political, and Religious Background to the Work of Louis Pasteur

Abstract

+1726 Despite recent controversies over the inheritance of intelligence, Wilson's Sociobiology, and genetic engineering, scientists are still reluctant to admit that extrascientific factors play any significant role in the scientific enter­ prise. Although agreeing that social and economic factors influence the quality and quantity of scientific output, they are less ready to accept that scientists allow such factors to influence either the choices they make be­ tween conflicting scientific theories or the formation of the theories them­ selves. The image they wish to portray of themselves is one of rational, open-minded investigators, proceeding methodically, grounded incontrov­ ertibly in the outcome of controlled experiments, and seeking objectively for the truth, let the chips fall where they may (2). The history of the spontaneous generation controversy provides a rich case study from which to examine thi s model of scientific endeavors. In the first place, it was a controversy in which the chips, if allowed to fall, did so in rather sensitive areas. Anyone accepting the possibility of spontaneous generation was usually castigated as a materialist and atheist. Second, traditiona l accounts of the controversy lend vivid support to the image scientists have of themselves. They narrate how the ancient myth was slowly eroded through a series of meticulous experiments running from Francesco Redi in the seventeenth century, through Lazzaro Spallanzani in the eighteenth century, to Louis Pasteur in the nineteenth century. This interpretation, by referring exclusively to the experimental aspect of the debate, bears out Pasteur's own ideal of science. No religion, no philoso