Cell Theory

Spontaneous Generation The idea that living things come from nonliving things

Recipe for Bees:

1. Kill a bull during the first thaw of winter.

2. Build a shed.

3. Place the bull on branches and herbs in the shed.

4. Wait for summer. The decaying body of the bull will produce bees.

Redi’s Experiment:

Pasteur’s Experiment:

Miller-Urey Experiment:Those who have taken biology courses are probably familiar with the Miller-Urey experiment. This was an experiment carried out in 1953 by Dr. Stanley Miller (though it mimicked closely the earlier experimentation of Harold Urey in 1929). The experimental concept and apparatus were very simple. His group attempted to simulate the conditions on earth. They sealed into a closed system an atmosphere of methane, hydrogen, ammonia, and water. They then heated this mixture to provide the complete atmosphere (boiling the water to obtain the water vapor). In another chamber, they ran a continuous electric current through the "atmosphere" to simulate lightning strikes. They then collected the products in a trap after condensation of the water vapor, and analyzed the results after a week of continuous electrical discharge.

Miller and his group found that around 2% of the carbon in the system (from the methane) had been incorporated into amino acids (the building blocks of proteins, obviously very important for life systems), along with another 15% or so being incorporated into various other organic compounds. Despite the low amount of amino acids, the results of this experiment were thought to "prove" that life chemicals could be created through the conditions proposed, and this essentially served to validate the entire naturalistic scheme proposed by evolutionists. However, there are several insurmountable problems with relying upon the results of these experiments to confirm the evolutionary hypothesis.

Miller-Urey Experiment

Goal of the Miller-Urey Experiment: To create life in a test tube

Results of the Miller-Urey Experiment: Created amino acids and other organic molecules

Did not create life

Cell Theory:

1. Cells are the basic unit of living things

2. Cells come from other cells

3. All living things are made of one or more cells

Robert Hooke discovered cells…by the way.