4 ms·

Honestly, that might be a different order of magnitude when it comes to speed -- maybe if we have evidence of life within the first ~10,000 years instead of hun

by hawkice 11y ago

Honestly, that might be a different order of magnitude when it comes to speed -- maybe if we have evidence of life within the first ~10,000 years instead of hundreds of millions. We've only been trying to replicate the origin of life for couple hundred years, tops, at an extremely small percentage of locations on earth where we'd notice if it happened. It might be extremely likely to happen when you try everywhere on earth for hundreds of thousands of years, and that's a rounding error compared to dates we are looking at. A much better source for what you are talking about would be e.g. finding tardigrades or similar in the asteroid belt. That would show that life was part of the mix that went into the forming of the planets.

6502nerdface 11y ago
Yeah, I suppose once we've identified an actual mechanism or two of abiogenesis, we'll be in a better position to estimate expected wait times in likely environments. And if the wait times are as fast as you suggest, it simply may not be possible to date rocks/minerals accurately enough for the necessary comparison.
sunstone 11y ago
On the other hand, if life creating was so relatively easy it would be much more likely to find evidence for multiple independent instances of life starting on earth. My understanding is that, so far, all life on earth is part 'one web' not multiple webs.
- hawkice 11y ago
  tl;dr It's very likely that first-life creates a lock-out, quickly soaking up all resources that could be used for independent abiogenesis. Let's say the probability of new life is roughly constant (and a relatively low probability). It should roughly follow a Poisson distribution -- in other words, using current knowledge, and assuming (1) life would be created noticeably differently given similar circumstances and (2) it didn't (molecule chirality indicates both of these, for instance) AND (3) the events are independent, which you need for the distribution -- then it'd be pretty weird for something following a Poisson distribution where: Earth Exists: Time 0. We have physical things from the time period: Time 2 Event in the distribution: Life: Time 4 Then absolutely no new instances until time 45 (unit here is 100MM years) This is all by means of formalizing your argument, which is largely correct. But it's important to note that it assumes that the events are independent, which I strongly, strongly suspect they are not. Life takes resources and uses them up, and will expand until it meets carrying capacity. So first-past-the-post-wins seems like a much better guess as to the relationship between origins-of-life.

by hawkice 11y ago

6502nerdface 11y ago

Yeah, I suppose once we've identified an actual mechanism or two of abiogenesis, we'll be in a better position to estimate expected wait times in likely environments. And if the wait times are as fast as you suggest, it simply may not be possible to date rocks/minerals accurately enough for the necessary comparison.

sunstone 11y ago

On the other hand, if life creating was so relatively easy it would be much more likely to find evidence for multiple independent instances of life starting on earth. My understanding is that, so far, all life on earth is part 'one web' not multiple webs.

hawkice 11y ago
tl;dr It's very likely that first-life creates a lock-out, quickly soaking up all resources that could be used for independent abiogenesis. Let's say the probability of new life is roughly constant (and a relatively low probability). It should roughly follow a Poisson distribution -- in other words, using current knowledge, and assuming (1) life would be created noticeably differently given similar circumstances and (2) it didn't (molecule chirality indicates both of these, for instance) AND (3) the events are independent, which you need for the distribution -- then it'd be pretty weird for something following a Poisson distribution where: Earth Exists: Time 0. We have physical things from the time period: Time 2 Event in the distribution: Life: Time 4 Then absolutely no new instances until time 45 (unit here is 100MM years) This is all by means of formalizing your argument, which is largely correct. But it's important to note that it assumes that the events are independent, which I strongly, strongly suspect they are not. Life takes resources and uses them up, and will expand until it meets carrying capacity. So first-past-the-post-wins seems like a much better guess as to the relationship between origins-of-life.