For centuries scientists had struggled with the question of life and how it differed from non-living matter. Vitalism, the view that at some level living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living matter, had existed since the Greeks. Chemist Stanley Miller’s experiment to synthesize amino acids from inorganic matter was quickly hailed for determining a possible mechanism for the formation of life on Earth, but was just as quickly deemed incomplete. The Miller experiment demonstrates that
significant scientific changes do not happen overnight, and in some cases, they may take well over a century to take place.

Explore the full story of Stanley Miller and the scientific conflict over vitalism.