| The Stanley Miller Experiment In 1953, Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey, working at the University of Chicago, conducted an experiment which would change the way that modern science approaches the investigation into the origin of life. The two scientists performed a now classic experiment demonstrating how inorganic elements, under the right conditions, could combine to form some of the precursors of organic chemicals. Stanley Miller, a graduate researcher, did not set out to show how life was created by inanimate, inorganic matter. He was actually performing experiments designed to find out how lightning (reproduced by electric discharges) might have affected the Earth’s primitive atmosphere. He sent these electric discharges through a flask containing some of the gasses that would have been abundant three to four billion years ago. These included methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water (just imagine three out of the four gasses that they used to simulate the beginning stages of creation are highly noxious to humans). The experimenters repeatedly condensed and vaporized the mixture, for a full week and found, using chromatography, that at the end of seven days about 15% of the carbon had formed organic compounds. Upon further examination they found that about 2% of the carbon in the experiment had formed the fundamental building blocks of all proteins and thus of all cellular life… amino acids. Charles Darwin predicted, very generally that the abiotic production of simple organic molecules must have been the initial step in the creation of life. Darwin was very careful not to publish his speculations on the topic of creation though. He did write a letter to a friend in 1871 revealing his insight into the potential of abiotic, chemical processes: "It has often been said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present which could have ever been present but if and oh what a big if, we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc. present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes. At the present day, such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed." Miller and Urey’s findings influenced a multitude of experiments which have been attempting to detail, very specifically, how cells could be formed from amino acids. The pair did more than just prove Darwin right, they also influenced the creation of new fields of research. If life could be created on the Earth by chemical processes, couldn’t life be generated on Earth-like planets outside of our solar system? The disciplines of astrobiology, exobiology, radio astronomy and special government affiliated groups like S.E.T.I. (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) attempt to assess the probability for, and the origin, nature and prevalence of life elsewhere in the universe. This experiment was a major interdisciplinary breakthrough as it offered an explanation for the biological in terms of the chemical and the physical. Along with creating a definite link between these three areas the experiment also succeeded in allowing for a more ambitious philosophical understanding of the human condition. Abiotic: adj. Nonliving. The abiotic factors of the environment include light, temperature, and atmospheric gases. Amino Acid: noun An organic compound that has the ability to link with other amino acids to form proteins. They can also function as chemical messengers in the body and as intermediates in metabolism. Noxious: adj. Harmful to living things; injurious to health. |
| Organization for the Advancement of Interdisciplinary Learning |