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| Louis Pasteur |
Louis Pasteur was, without a doubt, one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. His scientific work was immense. Among his most notable discoveries are the following:
1.
Optical isomerism. The fact that certain substances occur in two
different forms, with the same chemical composition but different physical
properties, for they rotate the plane of polarization of light in opposite
directions.
2.
Alcoholic, acetic, lactic, and butyric fermentations, which he showed are due to the action of bacteria
or yeast.
3. Spontaneous generation, which in his time was only defended for microorganisms, and Pasteur demonstrated it’s impossible under current conditions.
4.
Silkworm diseases. Pasteur proved they were caused by bacteria,
which allowed him to save the silk industry in Europe.
5.
The germ theory of diseases, which states that infectious diseases are caused
by microorganisms.
6.
The first artificial vaccines, made from germs artificially weakened before
inoculation to protect against the corresponding disease. The first was the vaccine
against anthrax in sheep, followed by others, the best-known and famous of
which is the vaccine that protects against rabies.
Pasteur's religious ideas have given rise to controversy. Both believers and non-believers have tried to claim credit for including him among their number, citing anecdotes of dubious credibility, such as that of the young man who met him on a train and mocked him for reading the Bible. This anecdote, by the way, is considered true by the language model (LLM) associated to the Google search engine, which some call "artificial intelligence." In response to the search term Pasteur tren (train in Spanish) it wrote, among other things, the following (translated from Spanish into English):
The
anecdote tells of a train ride where a young and arrogant student mocked an old
man who was reading the Bible, calling it "fables." The old man, in
response, gave him a business card that revealed he was the illustrious Louis
Pasteur. The young man, upon reading it and discovering that he had offered to
give scientific lessons to a genius like Pasteur, blushed and was embarrassed…
The
moral: The anecdote illustrates the importance of humility and knowledge, as
well as the integration of science and faith. It demonstrates that true science
does not contradict faith, but that, in many cases, the two can coexist and
complement each other, as did Louis Pasteur, a scientist who did not hide his
faith.
In fact, Pasteur did not clearly define himself on
this matter, so we must turn to what his friends, descendants, and other
relatives have said about him. Thus, his grandson, Louis Pasteur Vallery-Radot,
wrote this in 1939: My father and mother always said that Pasteur was not a
practicing Catholic. In his Life of Pasteur, my father
speaks of his spiritualism, not his Catholicism.
His great-grandnephew and biographer, Maurice
Vallery-Radot, argues in his 1994 book that Pasteur was fundamentally Catholic,
even though he did not regularly attend Mass. His childhood friend, Charles
Chappuis, says that Pasteur attended the Lenten sermons at Notre Dame de Paris.
In 1859, after the death of his daughter Jeanne at
the age of 9, Pasteur wrote: She has just gone to heaven to pray for us. And in 1882, in his acceptance speech at the
French Academy, he uttered these words:
What
lies beyond that starry vault? More starry heavens. So be it! And beyond?... When this
idea [of infinity] takes hold of our understanding, all that remains is to
prostrate oneself. One feels ready to be captured by Pascal's
sublime madness.
Except for the contribution of Google's LLM, this post
is a brief summary of the article I wrote for the book La
cosmovisión de los grandes cientÃficos del siglo XIX, which I reviewed in a
post in the Spanish version of this blog.
Thematic Thread on Science and History: Previous Next
Manuel Alfonseca
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