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 proba

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.