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If it turned out that going from amino acid to DNA/protein life is only possible by chance, then this an argument that there were at least 1e1000000 or whatever
by _0w8t 4y ago
If it turned out that going from amino acid to DNA/protein life is only possible by chance, then this an argument that there were at least 1e1000000 or whatever number past universes to allow to produce life.
- CamperBob2 4y agoIt's not a lottery. It's a hill-climb.
- pfdietz 4y agoOnce we have a system capable of Darwinian evolution, yes. The problem is getting to such a system. This is the Great Handwave we see so often in discussions of origin of life.
- zaccusl 4y agoIs it really a handwave to say we don't know? Sound pretty logical as opposed to just making something up or parroting some origin story like people have been doing for 1000s of years.
- pfdietz 4y agoIt's a handwave to say it's a hill climb when there's no clear mechanism to make it a hill climb. That's not saying we don't know, it's saying we DO know when we actually don't. It's basically assuming away the problem, the complexity gap between simple chemicals and systems we know can pile on complexity via natural selection.