Friday, February 5, 2010

Which of the following statements is probably true about the experiments that supposedly proved that ?

Which of the following statements is probably true about the experiments that supposedly proved that spontaneous generation occurs?





Which of the following statements is probably true about the experiments that supposedly proved that ?
You've got no ';following statements'; to choose from.





The idea that complex life is formed from inanimate matter (maggots from rotting meat, for example) was shown to be false back in the 17th century.





If you're talking about the origin of life, that's called abiogenesis. It's different from spontaneous generation in that it proposes that simple life arose from the complex reactions in the chemical-rich primordial seas. That life would have been extremely simple, even compared to modern bacteria, and not obviously different from the chemical reactions naturally occurring around it.





So far, abiogenesis isn't even at the level of a theory (that's the scientific definition of theory, not the common definition, look it up if you don't know what I mean). It's currently a hypothesis. Some experiments have supported it, but nothing has been proven. Take the Urey-Miller experiment, for example. It didn't propose a mechanism for how life arose... it simply showed that complex organic molecules (that form the foundation of life) could possibly form naturally under certain conditions. Supporting evidence, yes, but far from proof. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily *wrong,* just that we need to do a lot more research before we can say we've figured it our.

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