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Thread: Origin of Life

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    I currently lean towards number two, but keep an open mind.
    It would be nice if we had more intel on emergence: the transition from non-life to life. There is zero chance something as mind boggling complex as even a single eukaryotic cell just appeared on the scene without an incredible sequence of interim events. Unless we were seeded from another planetary body.
    I'm leaning towards number three. This part of number two put me off choosing it: "one that was almost infinitely unlikely and required an improbable sequence of numerous steps."


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    Quote Originally Posted by AProudLefty View Post
    "Scientists have called for a "mission to Earth" to hunt for evidence of a second genesis that gave rise to life, but not as we know it."...."must be open to the possibility that there's more than one tree of life," Davies said.

    It is still just an educated guess, but this kind of creative thinking and open mindedness is the trademark of good science.

    At this time, available evidence indicates that life, curiously, evolved only once on earth. But a search for evidence of multiple evolutionary events is something we should do. Because I am not the only one who thinks it is a little weird that life only evolved once on earth in four billion years, especially if our expectation is that life is common, resilent, and ubiquitous in the universe.

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    Quote Originally Posted by christiefan915 View Post
    I'm leaning towards number three. This part of number two put me off choosing it: "one that was almost infinitely unlikely and required an improbable sequence of numerous steps."
    Another interesting theory is the Infinite Monkey Theorem.



    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

    That would also apply to today's politics.

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    Quote Originally Posted by christiefan915 View Post
    I'm leaning towards number three. This part of number two put me off choosing it: "one that was almost infinitely unlikely and required an improbable sequence of numerous steps."
    I get it. These three choices were just endpoints. There are gradations between them.

    I actually want to choose option 2.5, so to speak. Something in between life being ubiquitous, and life being infinitesimally rare.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AProudLefty View Post
    Another interesting theory is the Infinite Monkey Theorem.



    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

    That would also apply to today's politics.
    I have heard of this theorem but not the junkyard tornado until now. You're right about today's politics.


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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    I get it. These three choices were just endpoints. There are gradations between them.

    I actually want to choose option 2.5, so to speak. Something in between life being ubiquitous, and life being infinitesimally rare.
    2.5 would work for me, too, it's not so cut and dried as the others.


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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    "Scientists have called for a "mission to Earth" to hunt for evidence of a second genesis that gave rise to life, but not as we know it."...."must be open to the possibility that there's more than one tree of life," Davies said.

    It is still just an educated guess, but this kind of creative thinking and open mindedness is the trademark of good science.

    At this time, available evidence indicates that life, curiously, evolved only once on earth. But a search for evidence of multiple evolutionary events is something we should do. Because I am not the only one who thinks it is a little weird that life only evolved once on earth in four billion years, especially if our expectation is that life is common, resilent, and ubiquitous in the universe.
    To be fair, we know next to nothing about abiogenesis. It's a mystery as of right now.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AProudLefty View Post
    To be fair, we know next to nothing about abiogenesis. It's a mystery as of right now.
    It might not even be a purely scientific question, because it might not be testable or falsifiable.

    It is the type of question which might straddle the boundary between science and metaphysics.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    It might not even be a purely scientific question, because it might not be testable or falsifiable.

    It is the type of question which might straddle the boundary between science and metaphysics.
    That reminds me of Plato's theory of forms.

    Ancient Greece sure did have a lot of good theories. It isn't a coincidence that they theorized about the existence of atoms.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AProudLefty View Post
    That reminds me of Plato's theory of forms.

    Ancient Greece sure did have a lot of good theories. It isn't a coincidence that they theorized about the existence of atoms.
    Indeed. Two of my favorite intellectual achievements of ancient Greece: Anaximander articulated a theory of evolution, and Democritus came up with atomic theory.

    It is remarkable it took two thousand years for European science to circle back and reacquire a theory of evolution and an atomic theory.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    Two of my favorite intellectual achievements of ancient Greece: Anaximander articulated a theory of evolution, and Democritus came up with atomic theory.

    It is remarkable it took two thousand years for European science to circle back and reacquire a theory of evolution and an atomic theory.
    Yes it's so remarkable that it's another mystery itself. I attribute it to the Dark Ages. I've had a discussion with someone about it. He said it was based on necessity.
    I disagreed with him naturally.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AProudLefty View Post
    Yes it's so remarkable that it's another mystery itself. I attribute it to the Dark Ages. I've had a discussion with someone about it. He said it was based on necessity.
    I disagreed with him naturally.
    Part of it is that Greek thought was lost to western Europe for almost a thousand years.

    But part of it is probably that even in the Greek world, the atomic theory of Democritus did not recieve widespread acceptance. Aristotle throught the theory of atomism was preposterous, and to the minds of medieval western Europeans and the Islamic scholars of Andalusia, Aristotle's authority was unimpeachable.

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    Everyone keeps talking about THE universe.

    What if there is more than one?

    What there are an infinite number if them?
    https://i.postimg.cc/PqVCnGks/gojoe1.jpg
    C'MON MAN!!!!

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    The problem I have with it is there have always been mavericks. Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci being two perfect examples.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nomad View Post
    Everyone keeps talking about THE universe.

    What if there is more than one?

    What there are an infinite number if them?

    Then you go to the multiverse. Not one universe, many multiverses.

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