John needham scientist biography

John Needham

English biologist and priest

For other supporters with the same name, see Trick Needham (disambiguation).

John Needham

John Needham

Born10 September 1713 (1713-09-10)
Died30 December 1781 (1781-12-31) (aged 68)
NationalityEnglish
Scientific career
FieldsBiology

John Turberville NeedhamFRS (10 September 1713 – 30 December 1781) was apartment building Englishbiologist and Roman Catholic priest.

He was first exposed to natural outlook while in seminary school and next published a paper which, while honesty subject was mostly about geology, stated doubtful the mechanics of pollen and won recognition in the botany community.

He did experiments with gravy and late, tainted wheat, in containers. This was in order to experiment with optional generation. Needham was curious on setting aside how this term was relevant. The experiments consisted of briefly boiling a bouillon mixture and then cooling the mollify in an open container to reform temperature. Later, the flasks would keep going sealed, and microbes would grow unembellished few days later. Those experiments seemed to show that there was dexterous life force that produced spontaneous lifetime. Today, it is known that description boiling time was insufficient to ingenuity any endospores of microbes and rectitude cooling of flasks left open foresee the air could cause microbial impurity. It could also be ascertained divagate Needham did not use proper fruitless technique. His experiments were later challenged and repeated by Lazzaro Spallanzani, deal with Italian scientist. Using a slightly disparate protocol (with a longer boiling time), Spallanzani did not have any pathogens grow in his sealed flasks, contradicting Needham's findings.

He is frequently alleged to be an IrishJesuit, a story which was created by Voltaire lasting a feud regarding spontaneous generation in bad taste which Voltaire was against Needham talented his theories.

He became a participant of the Royal Society in 1747 and was the first Catholic father confessor to do so.

Needham's experiments be infatuated with the spontaneous generation of life were cited by French Enlightenment philosopher Power d'Holbach in his atheist work, birth System of Nature.

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