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Life and Its Beginnings

The document summarizes the history of scientific thought on the origins of life from ancient times to modern day. It describes early beliefs in spontaneous generation and experiments by Redi, Needham, and Spallanzani that challenged this idea, providing early evidence for biogenesis. Later, Pasteur's experiments further supported biogenesis and disproved spontaneous generation. Current hypotheses on how life began include divine creation, spontaneous origin from simple molecules, and panspermia where life began elsewhere and was transported to Earth.

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Christine Damirez
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49 views27 pages

Life and Its Beginnings

The document summarizes the history of scientific thought on the origins of life from ancient times to modern day. It describes early beliefs in spontaneous generation and experiments by Redi, Needham, and Spallanzani that challenged this idea, providing early evidence for biogenesis. Later, Pasteur's experiments further supported biogenesis and disproved spontaneous generation. Current hypotheses on how life began include divine creation, spontaneous origin from simple molecules, and panspermia where life began elsewhere and was transported to Earth.

Uploaded by

Christine Damirez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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GENERAL

BIOLOGY 11
LIFE AND ITS BEGINNINGS

2
Early Beliefs About the Origin of Life

◆ Spontaneous Generation or Abiogenesis - ​is the idea that life originates


from non-living matter. This idea was proposed by Aristotle in the fourth century
and held its position as the belief on the origin of life until the seventeenth century.

People in the past believed that flies can grow from cattle manure,
mice from wheat stored in the decaying meat, fish from mud of
previously dried lakes or lice from sweat.
Biogenesis - i​s the belief that life originates from pre-existing life. 
 
REDI’S EXPERIMENT

◆ In 1668, the Italian physician Francesco Redi conducted an


experiment that challenged the idea of spontaneous
generation.
◆ His experimental set-up involved rejecting spontaneous
generation using maggots that arose from decaying meat.
◆ He designed the experiment using two sets of jars that were
identical, but one jar had a gauze covering.
REDI’S EXPERIMENT

◆ Redi observed that flies were attracted to both jars. However,


the flies settled only on the meat of the open jar, since the
gauze blocked flies from hovering onto the meat in the other
jar.

◆ After several days, Redi observed that maggots arose from


eggs laid by flies on the rotten meat but not on the meat in the
covered jar.
REDI’S EXPERIMENT
Francesco Redi

◆ He concluded that life arose


from living matter such as
maggots from eggs of flies,
and not from spontaneous
generation in the meat.
NEEDHAM’S EXPERIMENT

◆ I​ n 1748, the English priest John Needham challenged Redi's


experiment.
◆ It was a common knowledge at that time that boiling can
killed whether or not microorganisms can appear
spontaneously after boiling.
◆ He placed a solution of boiled mutton broth in a container
and heated it. Then, he sealed it with corks proving that it
could prevent anything from the environment to enter the
flask and generate life.
NEEDHAM’S EXPERIMENT
NEEDHAM’S EXPERIMENT

◆ After several days, Needham


observed that the broth turned
cloudy due to microorganisms.
◆ He then concluded that life in the
broth was caused by spontaneous
generation. In actuality, he did not
heat it long enough to kill all the
microbes in the broth.
John Needham
SPALLANZANI’S EXPERIMENT

◆ I​ n 1767, the Italian scientist Lazzaro Spallanzani, challenged


Needham's experiment.
◆ Spallanzani boiled a broth containing meat and vegetables
placed in clean glass containers.
◆ Both containers were boiled, but one setup was not sealed,
allowing air to enter the flask.
◆ Several days later, the open container was filled with a
population of microorganisms, while the sealed container
remained sterile.
SPALLANZANI’S EXPERIMENT
Lazarro Spallanzani

◆ H
​ e concluded that life occurred
from something that entered the
unsealed flask and that it was the
one responsible for life to grow.
The results were not taken
completely by the believers of
abiogenesis.
PASTEUR’S EXPERIMENT

◆ It was because the microorganism settled on the bottom of the


curved neck of the flask and cannot reach the mixture. He also
cut the neck of the flask. Within two days, the solution was
teeming with microorganisms because airborne
microorganisms easily entered the flask. This experiment
supported the theory of biogenesis and rejected spontaneous
generation. This evidence suggests that new organisms arise
only when they are produced by existing organisms.
Louis Pasteur

◆ It was because the microorganism settled on the bottom of the


curved neck of the flask and cannot reach the mixture.
◆ He also cut the neck of the flask. Within two days, the
solution was teeming with microorganisms because airborne
microorganisms easily entered the flask.
PASTEUR’S EXPERIMENT
Louis Pasteur

◆ This experiment supported the


theory of biogenesis and rejected
spontaneous generation. This
evidence suggests that new
organisms arise only when they
are produced by existing
organisms.
​Current Beliefs About the Origin of Life

​DIVINE CREATION
◆ The oldest hypothesis that life came from a divine being is
the most widely accepted belief.
◆ It is believed that life forms and everything in the universe
were created through a supernatural power rather than
naturalistic means. This belief is called creationism.
Creationists believe that everything was made by a supreme
being in a six-day period.
DIVINE CREATION

20
SPOTANEOUS ORIGIN

◆ Some scientists believe that the first life came from a


spontaneous origin or life evolved from inanimate matter.
◆ Before life has evolved, simple molecules combined to form
complex ones. The energy that drove these chemical processes
may come from lightning or some form of geothermal energy,
culminating in the evolution of cells from simple to
multicellular forms.
SPOTANEOUS ORIGIN

◆ Electric sparks can produce amino acids and sugars from an


atmosphere loaded with preexisting materials like water,
methane, ammonia, and hydrogen.
◆ Scientists also tried to explain various scenarios where life
molecules might have first assembled, such as in underwater
volcanic vents, surface of clay sediments, deep in Earth's
crust, or under frozen oceans.
SPONTANEOUS ORIGIN

◆ Another hypothesis deals with the primordial soup that


complex biological compounds were randomly assembled by
chance in an organic broth on Earth's early surface.
◆ The famous Miller-Urey experiment suggested that lightning
may have helped trigger the creation of the key building
blocks of life on Earth during the earliest time period, which
started the evolution of life.
​

MILLER-UREY
EXPERIMENT
PANSPERMIA

◆ The Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius popularized the idea


that life arose outside Earth and life forms were transported
from another planet to serve as seed of life on Earth.
◆ Panspermia proposes that a meteor or cosmic dust may have
carried to Earth significant amounts of organic molecules,
which started the evolution of life.
PANSPERMIA

◆ In 1966, a meteorite that


was found in Antarctica,
suggested that it had
been ejected from Mars
possibly by a collision
with an asteroid.

◆ The meteorite contained presence of complex organic


molecules and small globules, which resemble those found on
Earth.
Thanks!
Any questions?

27

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