Question

Evidence used to support spontaneous generation was the observation that foods over time become covered in maggots or fungal and bacterial growth. The inference behind spontaneous generation is that there is no “parent” organism. Write this inference as a hypothesis using an if–then sentence that suggests a way of testing it.

Answer 1

A hypothesis that may be used to test the idea of spontaneous generation may be:

If there are no parent organisms present, then there will be organisms present in a container.

This hypothesis was tested in order to disprove the theory of spontaneous generation. A closed jar with meat was left and no maggots were observed, while an open jar with the same meat had maggots in it after some time.