Question 10
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
From ancient times, people commonly believed that life arose repeatedly by spontaneous generation from non-living materials in addition to parental reproduction. For example frogs appeared to rise from damp earth, mice from putrefied matter, insects from dew and maggots from decaying meat. Warmth, moisture, sunlight and even starlight often were mentioned as factors that encourage spontaneous generation of living organism. Among the account of early efforts to synthesize organisms in the laboratory is a recipe for making mice given by the Belgian (1648). 'if you press underwear soiled with sweat together with some wheat in an pen jar, after 21 days the odour changes and it ferment.... changes the wheat into mice. but what is more remarkable is that mice which came out of the wheat and the underwear were not small mice not even miniature adults or aborted mice but adult mice emerged'.
In 1861, the great French scientist Louis Pasteur convinced science that living organism cannot arise spontaneously from non-living matter. In his famous experiments, Pasteur introduced fermentable materials into a flask with along S-shaped that was open to the air. The flask its contents were boiled fro a long time to kill any micro organisms that might be present. Afterwards the flask was cooled and left undisturbed. No fermentation occurred because all organism that entered the open end were deposited in the open neck and did not reach the fermentation material.
When the neck of the flask was removed, microorganisms in the air promptly entered the fermentable material and proliferated. Pasteur concluded that life could not originate in the absence of previously existing organisms and their reproductive elements as eggs and spores. Announcing his results to the French academy, Pasteur proclaimed, 'never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation arise from this moral blow. All living organisms share a common ancestor, most likely a population of colonial micro-organism that lived almost four billion year ago. This common ancestry was a product of a long period of prebiotic assembly by non-living things matter, including organic molecules and water, to form self replicating units. all living organisms retain a fundamental chemical composition inherited from their ancient common ancestor
From ancient times, people commonly believed that life arose repeatedly by spontaneous generation from non-living materials in addition to parental reproduction. For example frogs appeared to rise from damp earth, mice from putrefied matter, insects from dew and maggots from decaying meat. Warmth, moisture, sunlight and even starlight often were mentioned as factors that encourage spontaneous generation of living organism. Among the account of early efforts to synthesize organisms in the laboratory is a recipe for making mice given by the Belgian (1648). 'if you press underwear soiled with sweat together with some wheat in an pen jar, after 21 days the odour changes and it ferment.... changes the wheat into mice. but what is more remarkable is that mice which came out of the wheat and the underwear were not small mice not even miniature adults or aborted mice but adult mice emerged'.
In 1861, the great French scientist Louis Pasteur convinced science that living organism cannot arise spontaneously from non-living matter. In his famous experiments, Pasteur introduced fermentable materials into a flask with along S-shaped that was open to the air. The flask its contents were boiled fro a long time to kill any micro organisms that might be present. Afterwards the flask was cooled and left undisturbed. No fermentation occurred because all organism that entered the open end were deposited in the open neck and did not reach the fermentation material.
When the neck of the flask was removed, microorganisms in the air promptly entered the fermentable material and proliferated. Pasteur concluded that life could not originate in the absence of previously existing organisms and their reproductive elements as eggs and spores. Announcing his results to the French academy, Pasteur proclaimed, 'never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation arise from this moral blow. All living organisms share a common ancestor, most likely a population of colonial micro-organism that lived almost four billion year ago. This common ancestry was a product of a long period of prebiotic assembly by non-living things matter, including organic molecules and water, to form self replicating units. all living organisms retain a fundamental chemical composition inherited from their ancient common ancestor
in what sense is the use of the word 'water' in the last paragraph ironic?
Objective