ENVS 010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Stanley Miller, Primordial (Band), Paleontology

• School: SJSU
• Department: Environmental Studies, Department of
• Course: ENVS 010
• Professor: Laizzer

Document Summary

Early ideas on the origin of life. Spontaneous generation: living organisms arose from nonliving matter. If something was wrong with your property, that was where your pests came from. (ex. If you had bad meat that was where your maggots came from) Biogenesis: living organisms can only arise from other living organisms. Where did the first organisms come from. Modern theory on the origin of life. Second atmosphere gases from volcanoes, warm oceans, electricity from lightening, sunlight. 1953: stanley miller designed an experiment to test the primordial soup theory. The experiment produced organic matter including amino acids from inorganic matter. He idea that modern species arose or developed from a succession of ancestors leading to one common ancestor. Darwin hypothesized that as species moved to new environments, they adapted or changes traits to eventually become new species. Paleontologist trace changes in species over time through fossils. As species move around, they adapt to new environments, but still retain some old.