Quote from Smart Money:
Here's the one that gets me:
There is a barren planet. No life. Nothing but rocks, water, wind, lightning, and static electricity.
OK, so there are some complex carbons sitting next to each other. I guess they would have to coincidently be laying next to each other such that they would look exactly like a one-celled creature. Get that? The sand and soil moved such that through natural processes you have something that resembles a one-celled creature, only it hasn't received the spark of life.
Somehow, it doesn't decay or just get blown apart by winds, water, erosional processes, etc.
Anyway, there is suddenly some kind of static spark. Electricity or something that jolts it to life like Frankenstein in a lab.
TA-DA! Life! This one-celled thing creature...(bacteria?)...is alive
Implausible? Ok, hey with large numbers maybe anything is possilble, but then here is the amazing thing:
Suddenly this one-celled creature is the only thing on earth that it is alive. It can't be a predator...preying on other living things because there are none. So instead, it has to eat stuff available.
Dammit...this living thing that sparked to life wasn't built with a digestive system. So it dies.
And another one sparks to life in say...another million years. Dammit...no digestive system again. Now its dead.
Ok...finally, a few billion years later (is the earth old enough for this to happen?)....we get one that sparks to life and it can eat! Maybe its like iron bacteria or something...gets its energy from eating metals and stuff like that.
Oops...died again...nothing near it that it can eat.
A few billion years pass. Many new versions sparking to life, but they can't eat, or don't have food to eat next to them.. Not mobile enough to get to the food. Etc.
Hooray! Another one is born. This one is close to a food source. Its mobile enough. It made the cut. Its gonna live! Yea!!!!
Oops...it dies of old age. No mechanism for reproduction!
To review:
1. We need one that can be wholly formed and receive the spark of life without decaying.
2. Multiple versions of these would have to spring to life before you'd have one that could eat.
3. Multiple versons of the eating ones would have to spring to life before you'd get one that is mobile enough to get to new food sources.
4. And multiple versions of THOSE would have to be made before you get one that can also reproduce.
So my questions are:
A. Shouldn't we be able to find at least one "thing" resembling one of these versions prior to receiving the spark of life?
B. Given that each of these criteria are increasingly improbable, and stacking improbabilities would require more and more time (and more materials like the complex carbons), is it really plausible that the earth has been around long enough, and is big enough, to have enough materials and time to go through this process just once?
To me, the answer is no. I think that you'd need access to more materials, so I think its kind of improbable that earth is even the original birthplace of life. Life might be imported from other worlds. And if so, wouldn't it be ubuiquitous? Life should be found all over the galaxy, unless we just so happen to be one of the first to get it in our corner.
Nextly, given the life cycle of other planets, probability of planets being hit by comets, life cycle of stars, etc., isn't it just as improbable elsewhere?
OK, I get how evolution works. And the bible is filled with many examples of God using existing things to work his miracles. Could be the process where he made man from beasts. Whatever. But if you trace the origins of life backward, its pretty far-fetched that life could begin here, or anywhere. No enough time. Not enough material.
Yes, an infinite number of monkeys could eventually type up a shakespearian play. But there are only so many typewriters, and only so much time.
SM
