1.
The essay at the end of Chapter 2 discussed efforts to find life on other components of our solar system. How does the research reviewed in this chapter inform the search for extraterrestrial life?
To create paragraphs in your essay response, type <p> at the beginning of the paragraph, and </p> at the end.
2.
Suppose a selection scheme like the experiment reviewed in section 3.4 succeeded in producing a molecule that could make a copy of itself. According to the discussion in Box 3.1, would this molecule be alive? Write a one-page opinion piece for your local newspaper that explains the nature of the research and discusses the ethical and philosophical implications of the discovery.
To create paragraphs in your essay response, type <p> at the beginning of the paragraph, and </p> at the end.
3.
Oparin and Haldane proposed that life began in a warm, shallow-water environment. Some researchers suggest that it is much more likely that life began on or near hydrothermal vents. Based on the research reviewed in the first three chapters of this text, which hypothesis do you favor? To organize your answer, make a chart with the four steps in chemical evolution (see the introduction to this chapter) as rows and the two hypotheses as columns. Fill the chart with notes on which steps were most likely to occur in each of the two environments.
To create paragraphs in your essay response, type <p> at the beginning of the paragraph, and </p> at the end.
4.
Origin-of-life researcher Robert Crabtree maintains that experiments simulating early Earth conditions are a valid way to test the theory of chemical evolution. Crabtree maintains that if scientists working in the field agree that an experiment is a plausible reproduction of early Earth conditions, it is valid to infer that its results are probably correct—that the simulation effectively represents events that occurred some four billion years ago. Do you agree? Do you find the models presented in Chapter 2 or the experiments presented in Chapter 3 more convincing tests of the theory? Explain your answers.
To create paragraphs in your essay response, type <p> at the beginning of the paragraph, and </p> at the end.
