4 ms·

This is Nick Lane's argument - that complex cell happend only once on Earth (no convergent evolution) via this symbiotic accident and hence it's highly improbab

This is Nick Lane's argument - that complex cell happend only once on Earth (no convergent evolution) via this symbiotic accident and hence it's highly improbable if not almost impossible. As usual, people always seem to foreget that in this universe, what happened once, happens all the time and we are not special.

alangibson 4y ago
We're all just speculating given that were stuck at sample size = 1 until we develop near light speed travel. I get the convergent evolution point, but so far the story is that 1) life arose very quickly 2) then proceeded to do very little for billions of years. If that's true, then it's bad news for the possibility of complex life being common.
- majkinetor 4y ago
  It only means that complex life is less frequent then single cell life, not that it is uncommon.
- Qem 4y ago
  > 1) life arose very quickly 2) then proceeded to do very little for billions of years. This is understating the feats of unicelular life. Those tiny organisms essentially terraformed the whole planet in those billions of years, oxidizing nearly all the iron close to earth surface, burying most carbon and then pumping so much oxygen in the atmosphere that at a point it comprised 30% of Earth gaseous envelope by weight. I wouldn't call that very little. To come close we'll need at least to terraform Mars or Venus, to match the feats of our microbial forebears.
  - chestervonwinch 4y ago
    I think the parent comment meant doing very little from an evolutionary perspective.
ssl232 4y ago
Nick Lane's book The Vital Question is a masterpiece. I reckon he's figured out the origin of life there. I hope he gets on some podcast like Lex Fridman to talk about it all, because his ideas are just waiting to explode into the public imagination.
- aesch 4y ago
  He was just on Sean Carroll's podcast Mindscape, good listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IZ_CVu2M68 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IZ_CVu2M68
  - ssl232 4y ago
    Awesome! Thanks for the link, I'll give this a watch!
marcosdumay 4y ago
> that complex cell happend only once on Earth Well, it's quite possible that once it happens, it voids any chance of it happening again just because life filling that niche already exists. If so, it only happens once, and this says absolutely nothing about the odds of that first occurrence. > what happened once, happens all the time That's a fallacy people do all the time here when talking about exobiology. It's basically states that all small numbers and all big numbers are alike, and that all small numbers are like the inverse of all big numbers.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  Most other features evolved independently several (or even many) times so this is not a good argument. It’s not as if once there was a eukaryote it instantly spread across the whole planet, taking up every ecological niche. Even today eukaryotes don’t exist in certain environments.
  - maneesh 4y ago
    While no single eukaryote did what you said, eukaryotes as a whole did, to some extent, during the Cambrian Explosion
prox 4y ago
And that is if there is only one universe, which might not be so special as well.

alangibson 4y ago

We're all just speculating given that were stuck at sample size = 1 until we develop near light speed travel. I get the convergent evolution point, but so far the story is that 1) life arose very quickly 2) then proceeded to do very little for billions of years. If that's true, then it's bad news for the possibility of complex life being common.

majkinetor 4y ago
It only means that complex life is less frequent then single cell life, not that it is uncommon.
Qem 4y ago
> 1) life arose very quickly 2) then proceeded to do very little for billions of years. This is understating the feats of unicelular life. Those tiny organisms essentially terraformed the whole planet in those billions of years, oxidizing nearly all the iron close to earth surface, burying most carbon and then pumping so much oxygen in the atmosphere that at a point it comprised 30% of Earth gaseous envelope by weight. I wouldn't call that very little. To come close we'll need at least to terraform Mars or Venus, to match the feats of our microbial forebears.
- chestervonwinch 4y ago
  I think the parent comment meant doing very little from an evolutionary perspective.

ssl232 4y ago

Nick Lane's book The Vital Question is a masterpiece. I reckon he's figured out the origin of life there. I hope he gets on some podcast like Lex Fridman to talk about it all, because his ideas are just waiting to explode into the public imagination.

aesch 4y ago
He was just on Sean Carroll's podcast Mindscape, good listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IZ_CVu2M68 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IZ_CVu2M68
- ssl232 4y ago
  Awesome! Thanks for the link, I'll give this a watch!

marcosdumay 4y ago

> that complex cell happend only once on Earth Well, it's quite possible that once it happens, it voids any chance of it happening again just because life filling that niche already exists. If so, it only happens once, and this says absolutely nothing about the odds of that first occurrence. > what happened once, happens all the time That's a fallacy people do all the time here when talking about exobiology. It's basically states that all small numbers and all big numbers are alike, and that all small numbers are like the inverse of all big numbers.

zeroonetwothree 4y ago
Most other features evolved independently several (or even many) times so this is not a good argument. It’s not as if once there was a eukaryote it instantly spread across the whole planet, taking up every ecological niche. Even today eukaryotes don’t exist in certain environments.
- maneesh 4y ago
  While no single eukaryote did what you said, eukaryotes as a whole did, to some extent, during the Cambrian Explosion

prox 4y ago

And that is if there is only one universe, which might not be so special as well.