Darwin's evolution had made great inroads by now, but how did it all begin? Spontaneous generation was disproven by Pasteur in 1860, and the subject of a naturalistic genesis of life was too controversial, except in Soviet Russia which had disavowed of religion. Oparin suggested that life developed from a slow buildup of organic substances from simple compounds found in the primordial ocean and atmosphere.
A visual chronology of Asimov's ~1500 scientific inventions and discoveries.
