Correct Response: A. Growing evidence against the idea that life was derived spontaneously from non-living materials coincided with increasing evidence in favor of the cell theory. Cell theory describes the properties of cells and asserts that cells are the basic unit of life as well as the basic unit of reproduction. These beliefs were common up until the 19th century.
Endosymbiosis (B) is a more recent theory that specifies that several key organelles of eukaryotes originated as a symbiosis between separate single-celled organisms. Natural selection (C) is the concept that the differential survival and reproduction of individual organisms is the result of differences in phenotype, while uniformitarianism (D) is a theory that states that change in Earth's crust during geological history have resulted from the action of continuous and uniform processes.
Answer rationale clarified by PracticeQuiz Editorial Staff.
