Final answer:
Louis Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation through his swan-neck flask experiment, showing that contamination came from the air, not spontaneous generation.
Step-by-step explanation:
Louis Pasteur disproved the theory of spontaneous generation through his swan-neck flask experiment. In this experiment, Pasteur boiled a broth in a flask with a swan-neck-shaped neck that allowed air to enter but prevented the entry of bacterial and fungal spores. The broth remained free of contamination as long as the neck remained intact, demonstrating that microbes in the air were responsible for contamination, not spontaneous generation. Pasteur's experiment provided strong evidence that life only comes from preexisting life, and he is credited with definitively refuting the theory of spontaneous generation.