Does the Miller/Urey experiement Impress modern scientist?

Question

Sounds like so foolish an attempt since nothing was accomplished or Were any benefits noted?

Answer 1

Sure, it was a great experiment.  They demonstrated that organic compounds necessary for life could be synthesized under conditions that were likely to have occured way back in the day.

The problem wasn't so much the experiment, but all the stupid hype about it.  People jumped to the conclusion that these guys had somehow created life in a jar, which they never claimed.  Which of course got all the religious wingnut anti-science types spun up.  It really wasn't THAT big a deal.  Just a simple test to confirm that a certain aspect of the abiogenesis hypothesis was plausible.  I don't think they ever claimed that it was a first step toward creating life in a lab or anything like that.

And subsequent progress HAS been made on the topic of exploring the origins of life and its building blocks.  Our ability to look at DNA and compare how things are related has confirmed some of what they hypothesized way back in the day.