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by MattPalmer1086 1222 days ago
Because it is a logical possibility, and ignoring it would not be scientific.

Also, life on Earth started very fast, almost as soon as it was physically possible. That also seems quite unlikely.

1 comments

Why does it seem unlikely ?

We've got goldilocks conditions here on earth for creation of complex chemistries and emergence of life.

We've got all sorts of chemical elements, nice warm distance from the sun - lots of energy, but not too much to destroy things. Lots of liquid water, getting stirred up by a moon. A hot molten core providing both geothermal energy and a magnetic radiation shield. Plenty of lightening to initiate higher energy reactions...

Does it get an better ?

All those chemicals, getting mixed in water, stirred up by tides and thermal currents, heated up by the sun, are going to react ... no way to stop them.

In a few decades of trying a small number of labs experimenting with early earth type conditions have already been able to see organic chemicals created out of inorganic .. the building blocks of life, so imagine how common this would have been on early earth itself, with billions of micro environments chemically evolving 24x7 for millions of years ...

It's hard to say what we should regard as the beginnings of evolution, but this type of ever changing, ever complexifying stage of emerging organic chemistry on earth - essentialy an inevitability - could even be considered as the start.

You make a persuasive argument!

If almost inevitable, then I'd also expect life to form readily in many other places too. Unless Earth was just very, very unusual in some way.