5 ms·

I mean, I wouldn't call support for panspermia /boring/ exactly, but I agree that a wholly separate abiogenesis event would be pretty astounding.

eloff 6y ago
It would mean primitive life must be everywhere in the universe of it happened twice on adjacent planets independently. Very, very unlikely outcome.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Well, we don't know how unlikely it is. It increasingly looks like life showed up on earth almost as soon as it was geologically possible for it to show up, which, if true, would indicate either that abiogenesis is pretty easy or that panspermia is a thing.
  - eloff 6y ago
    It would indicate that, but it's also somewhat expected if we're around to make that observation, which tempers how much information we can take away from it. However, happening on two adjacent planets would really affect our estimations of the likelihood of abiogenesis.
    - Jweb_Guru 6y ago
      > It would indicate that, but it's also somewhat expected if we're around to make that observation, which tempers how much information we can take away from it. Life could have arisen on Earth much later than it did and we could still have been around to see it (or if not us, something like us) so the anthropic principle doesn't apply here. The fact that it arose so early is meaningful.
      - eloff 6y ago
        It is, but it's also sample size of 1. So yes, it indicates something but the confidence interval is really wide. Still, like you point out it's not meaningless as some people do try to argue.
        baja_blast 6y ago
        If you take a bayesian approach to the problem it's far more likely that abiogenesis is common. This youtube video does a great job of explaining it: https://youtu.be/iLbbpRYRW5Y https://youtu.be/iLbbpRYRW5Y
- Bud 6y ago
  We have basically zero data to tell us whether this outcome is "unlikely" or not. It could very easily turn out that this outcome is overwhelmingly likely.
beders 6y ago
No need to invoke panspermia. The inner planets have exchanged material such as rocks since the beginning of their existence. I would assume it is DNA-based life. It would be a major surprise if it would be RNA-based life or something not resembling our tree of life.

eloff 6y ago

It would mean primitive life must be everywhere in the universe of it happened twice on adjacent planets independently. Very, very unlikely outcome.

rsynnott 6y ago
Well, we don't know how unlikely it is. It increasingly looks like life showed up on earth almost as soon as it was geologically possible for it to show up, which, if true, would indicate either that abiogenesis is pretty easy or that panspermia is a thing.
- eloff 6y ago
  It would indicate that, but it's also somewhat expected if we're around to make that observation, which tempers how much information we can take away from it. However, happening on two adjacent planets would really affect our estimations of the likelihood of abiogenesis.
  - Jweb_Guru 6y ago
    > It would indicate that, but it's also somewhat expected if we're around to make that observation, which tempers how much information we can take away from it. Life could have arisen on Earth much later than it did and we could still have been around to see it (or if not us, something like us) so the anthropic principle doesn't apply here. The fact that it arose so early is meaningful.
    - eloff 6y ago
      It is, but it's also sample size of 1. So yes, it indicates something but the confidence interval is really wide. Still, like you point out it's not meaningless as some people do try to argue.
      - baja_blast 6y ago
        If you take a bayesian approach to the problem it's far more likely that abiogenesis is common. This youtube video does a great job of explaining it: https://youtu.be/iLbbpRYRW5Y https://youtu.be/iLbbpRYRW5Y
Bud 6y ago
We have basically zero data to tell us whether this outcome is "unlikely" or not. It could very easily turn out that this outcome is overwhelmingly likely.

beders 6y ago

No need to invoke panspermia. The inner planets have exchanged material such as rocks since the beginning of their existence. I would assume it is DNA-based life. It would be a major surprise if it would be RNA-based life or something not resembling our tree of life.