Year: 2022

RATIONALIZED EVOLUTION. "The possibility of human parthenogenesis, the sort of basic social reformation to which science could provide the key, was evident from the start. Artificial parthenogenesis was a vindication of Loeb's hopes and a model for science to come in which biologists would consciously work to reconstruct the natural order to make it more rational, efficient, and responsive to the ongoing development of engineering science." https://lnkd.in/eQf5Evv View in LinkedIn

CREATION OF LIFE. "In late 1899, a number of newspapers reported Loeb's first announcement of artificial parthenogenesis. The headline in the Boston Herald was typical: "Creation of Life. Startling Discovery of Prof. Loeb. Lower Animals Produced by Chemical Means. Process May Apply to Human Species. Immaculate Conception Explained. Wonderful Experiments Conducted at Woods Hole." Loeb rapidly moved from being a professor known only in narrow academic circles to a major scientist and eminent, even notorious, public figure." https://lnkd.in/eQf5Evv View in LinkedIn

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QUAINT COMMENT. "Loeb supposedly responded to the criticism that he had not excluded all sperm in his first experiments by earnestly assuring the "gentlemen" that he had filtered and sterilized the seawater, and "in wiping out the dishes used only ladies' handkerchiefs." https://lnkd.in/eQf5Evv View in LinkedIn

DANGERS OF SALT WATER. "They talked about "maiden ladies" giving up sea bathing on hearing of Loeb's discovery, and joked that vacations at the seashore did often result in conception." https://lnkd.in/eQf5Evv View in LinkedIn

IMMACULATUM. "One religious paper noted that "it is interesting to know that the science of this recent day is entertaining as a possibility what Christian faith accepts as actual in the case of the most notable birth that ever occurred." https://lnkd.in/eQf5Evv View in LinkedIn

WE ARE NOT AMUSED. "Loeb was not glad to read that he had demonstrated the possibility of the "immaculate conception" of Jesus, nor that artificial parthenogenesis was equivalent to spontaneous generation." https://lnkd.in/eQf5Evv View in LinkedIn

MANUFACTURE OF LIFE. "He considered artificial parthenogenesis, in some ways "the most vital discovery in the history of physiology," a near approach to "the manufacture of life in the laboratory." https://lnkd.in/eQf5Evv View in LinkedIn

ARTIFICIAL REPRODUCTION. "The less a scientist says about that now the better. It is a wonderful subject, and in many ways an awful one. That the human species may be made artificially to reproduce itself by the withdrawal of chemical restraint by other than natural means is a matter we do not like to contemplate." (Loeb). https://lnkd.in/eQf5Evv View in LinkedIn

ORIGIN OF LIFE. "But we have drawn a great step nearer to the chemical theory of life and may already see ahead of us the day when a scientist, experimenting with chemicals in a test tube, may see them unite and form a substance which shall live and move and reproduce itself." (Loeb). https://lnkd.in/eQf5Evv View in LinkedIn