Question

What did the Miller-Urey experiment prove?
A.That life arose on the earth through abiogenesis.
B.That life could have arisen on the earth through biogenesis
C.That life on the earth did not arise through abiogenesis
D.It proved none of the above.

Answer 1

Hint: Theory of abiogenesis: It states that life on earth originated from non-living things or compounds. Francisco Reddi, Alexander Oparin, Stanley Miller, and Harold Urey were some supporters of this theory.
Theory of biogenesis: It states that life on earth originated from the pre-existing life forms. William Harvey, Theodore Schwann, Lazarro Spallanzani, and Louis Pasteur were some supporters of this theory.

Complete answer:Urey and miller experiment: Experimental proof of chemogenetic theory was given by Urey and Miller. In the 1950s, Stanley Miller, then a graduate student at the University of Chicago, came up with an idea that he can simulate early earth conditions in the lab and then carefully watch what happens. If you can't study fish within the sea, set up an aquarium. Working with his professor, Harold Urey, Miller designed an apparatus to simulate the ancient water cycle, together they put in water inside the apparatus to model the ancient ocean, it was gently boiled to mimic evaporation along with water vapor, for gases in the atmosphere they choose methane, hydrogen, ammonia. These are simple gases which scientists at the time thought were probably abundant on the ancient earth. They added a condenser to cool the atmosphere allowing water molecules to form drops and fall back into their ocean-like rain. The ancient earth would have had many sources of energy like sunlight, geothermal heat, and even thunderstorms, so they added sparks to the atmosphere to simulate lightning. The goal of the experiment was not to create life but to simply test the first test in Oparin's model. After running the experiment for just one week, their ocean becomes brownish-black. Careful analysis revealed that through a series of reactions, many complex molecules had been produced. Among these were amino acids, special molecules of life that we once thought could only be built inside their bodies and living creatures. This was a pivotal breakthrough in science, so significant in the fact that It gave rise to entirely new field research now known as prebiotic chemistry.
Option -A-That life arose on the earth through abiogenesis.
Stanley and Miller's experiment proved that life on earth originated from simple non-living chemical molecules (like amino acids) i.e., life on earth originated through abiogenesis.
Option -B-That life could have arisen on the earth through biogenesis.
The theory of biogenesis states new life arises from pre-existing life which was not proved by Stanley and Miller.
Hence option A is correct.

Note: Sugars, lipids, and amino acids have even been found on meteorites. This suggests that the molecules of life are formed throughout the ancient solar system, and maybe forming right now in other regions of the galaxy. Together these discoveries tell us that Oparin"s primordial soup and Darwin's warm little pond, could have easily existed, in one way or another, on our ancient planet.