Question

What is inorganic evolution? How do embryological studies provide evidence for evolution?

Answer 1

Evolution is the process in which the heritable characteristics of a population changes with a successive generation. It involves a long period of time to produce a characteristic change in a population i.e. about 100s to 1000s of years.

Complete Answer:
Inorganic evolution basically deals with the origin of life and how the first form of life was formed. Oparin from Russia and Haldane from England proposed a theory that tells us that how the first form of life was formed from pre-existing non-living organic molecules (i.e. RNA, protein etc.) and that formation of life is preceded by the chemical evolution i.e. formation of diverse organic molecules from the inorganic molecules. This evolution basically deals with the theory of creativity of the universe. According to this, the first non-cellular forms of life composed of giant molecules (RNA, protein, polysaccharide etc.) originated about 3 billion years ago.

Embryological studies are helpful in determining the evidence of evolution by following the theory that embryogeny recapitulates phylogeny proposed by Ernst Haeckel. It can be explained by the help of certain examples like:
- Comparing the embryos of vertebrates shows that all have gill slits except in fishes. This supports the idea that all the vertebrates share common ancestors.
- Similar idea of common ancestor is explained by taking the example of the presence of limb bud in dolphins and tail bud in humans.
- These two examples prove early embryos of the vertebrates show striking similarities that means they have common origin and ancestry.

Note: S.L. Miller in 1953 created the similar conditions in a lab. He created electric discharge in a closed flask containing methane, hydrogen gas, ammonia and water vapor as the precursor inorganic molecule at 800°C. He observed the formation of amino acids followed by sugars, nitrogen bases, pigments and fats.