Student Guide for Topic 8: What is Life?
CLAR
102 - Inquiry in the Natural World – Spring 2003 - Lapennas
1. Know what unique characteristics life has that people have been
trying to explain for a long time
2. Know what general hypotheses about life people came up with to
explain these characteristics.
3. Know: the difference between mechanistic and vitalistic
explanations of life; why many scientists did not accept early mechanistic
explanations of life; and what developments led later scientists to accept the
mechanistic explanation of life.
4. Know about: the cell theory; synthesis of organic molecules; the
fermentation controversy; cryptobiosis; spontaneous generation; and how
discoveries concerning each of these during the 19th century helped
a mechanistic understanding of life replace other explanations.
1. Trefil,
J. and RM Hazen, The Sciences, 3rd
ed, pp. 443-446; 468-482; 489-497.
2.
Benington, J, What is Life? http://web.sbu.edu/physics/faculty/dimattio/Clare102/physics.dimattio-sp03.htm
1. What
remarkable characteristics do living things have that are not found in
non-living matter? Which two of these
are most fundamental?
2. What
invention made the discovery of cells possible? Draw a simple picture of a cell and its major parts. What is/are the primary function(s) of each
part?
3. What are
“organic” molecules? How have our ideas
about where they can be synthesized changed over time?
4. What are
the 4 main types of large organic molecules in cells? What is/are the primary function(s) of each?
5. What is
“cryptobiosis”? Identify several examples.
What general conclusion about life is supported by the phenomenon of
cryptobiosis?
Day 3 (Monday, 17 March) reading assignment:
Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch, “The germs of
dissent: Louis Pasteur and the origin of life,” from The Golem: What Everyone Should Know About Science, Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993.
http://web.sbu.edu/physics/faculty/dimattio/Clare102/physics.dimattio-sp03.htm
1. Describe
Pasteur’s evidence against spontaneous
generation.
2. Describe
Pouchet’s evidence in favor of
spontaneous generation
3. What
aspects of Pouchet’s experiments did Pasteur challenge and why?
4. At the end
of the chapter, Collins and Pinch say that, “Pasteur was a great scientist
but what he did bore little resemblance to the ideal set out in modern texts of
scientific method. It is hard to see how he would have brought about the
changes in our idea of the nature of germs if he had been constrained by the
sterile model of behavior which counts, for many, as the model of scientific
method.” What do they mean by this? Give specific examples.