Origin of Life: Pasteur, Darwin, Miller & Evolution Explained
Act II: The Life
Scene I: The Early Word
What role did Pasteur and Darwin play in explaining the origin of life?
Pasteur demonstrated that microscopic germs are ubiquitous. He conducted an experiment isolating meat and vegetable broth, boiling it to sterilize it, and concluded that life does not arise spontaneously but is a process that takes time.
Darwin’s principle of evolution of species posits that species are modified by natural selection, where nature selects the fittest for survival.
What did Stanley Miller accomplish in 1952?
In 1952, Stanley Miller reproduced the conditions of early Earth in a laboratory and demonstrated that amino acids and molecules present in living organisms could arise from inorganic matter.
Explain briefly what the author calls “organic rain.”
“Organic rain” occurs when molecules formed in ponds are enclosed in water vapor droplets. These droplets rise into the clouds, serving as a means of transport, and then fall elsewhere, facilitating the potential combination of this molecule with another.
Scene II: Life is Organized
Explain the importance of clay in the origin of life.
Clay facilitates the association of long molecules, resulting in small chains of amino acids.
What is the importance of droplets in the origin of life?
They find a way to cope with the environment and gain an evolutionary advantage.
How can we characterize a living organism? What about a virus?
-Living organism: A system that can fend for itself, reproduce, and ensure survival.
-Virus: A system that is neither alive nor dead and requires a living system to reproduce.
• What two inventions of nature contribute to the evolution of the first droplets?
Photosynthesis and respiration.
Photosynthesis: is based on chlorophyll and is the process by which the first droplets make their own power directly from sunlight.
-Breathing: the first droplets that absorb high-energy substances like oxygen.
Why is life so colorful?
A pigment can absorb photons and coloring matter and encourages the production of molecular chains.
Compare the author’s view of this action to the previous comment regarding the “intent” of evolution.
This act only shows one of the early known as the living system and how it evolves this to colonize the planet.
The earlier measure explains the process by which dead matter becomes living matter.
Scene III: The Explosion of Species
How were the first multicellular organisms built?
From the beginning, life tends to group individuals. Cells also thrive better when joined rather than isolated. These evolve, giving rise to a multicellular system in which each cell type has a specific function for the benefit of the cellular community.
What role does sex play in the evolution of early organisms? What about death?
Sex, when it appears, initiates a process of individual evolution that makes the evolutionary process faster and more efficient.
Death is a product of multicellular evolution, necessary to remove undeveloped cells from an organism to maintain optimal operating conditions.
Explain briefly the principle of natural selection.
The principle of natural selection is simply a random selection of organisms best adapted to the environment; those that fail are eliminated.
Analyze and discuss the author’s reflections on complexity.
The author refers to complexity in this section.
He states that it is not a complication but an organization of simple elements that grow in a continually changing environment, with the sole purpose of organizing more and more.