Medieval Europe believed life came from nowhere
Medieval Europeans believed life could spontaneously arise from non-living matter, a theory that shaped their understanding of the world until disproven in the 19th century.
For centuries, Medieval Europeans, from the 5th to the 15th century, widely accepted spontaneous generation: the idea that living things could pop into existence from non-living matter. Influenced by ancient thinkers like Aristotle, they thought maggots appeared on rotting meat, flies from mud, or even mice from dirty rags. Without microscopes, these observations seemed to prove life could just emerge. This belief filled gaps in understanding nature, impacting medicine and agriculture. It wasn't until Louis Pasteur's experiments in the 1860s that this ancient idea was finally disproven, ushering in modern microbiology.