Quote:
Originally Posted by Polixenes
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Oh drat, you've gone all serious on me.
I used "P(Life evolving on Earth) = 1" because I'm using present tense. It happened and it's still happening. I'm not sure if you were disagreeing with me or not.
I'm aware someone concocted a formula involving P(planet being in the right location at the right time) etc., if that's what you are referring to, but that's just made up and so full of estimates the resulting answer is still unknown. For all we know, the spontaneous development of life, given certain common chemistry/environmental conditions, is inevitable.
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But the problem with your logic is that "P(Life evolving on Earth) = 1" is only correct if a higher power didn't create life on Earth (I'm not arguing against evolution here btw, just the spontaneous generation of life.) As such, seeing as how we can't know the second part for sure we can't be certain about the first one, can we?
As far as knowing whether the development of life is inevitable... I'm pretty sure you are serious and the answer is no. Life is not inevitable, at least not so far as life forms such as ourselves. It takes a very specific set of conditions (far from "common chemistry/environmental conditions") in order for life to occur. Is it possible? Surely. Is it the way things happened? Who knows, I certainly don't know for sure.
I feel like the "life is not inevitable" thing is slightly misleading. It's kind of like the monkeys writing Shakespeare thing; i.e. given enough time anything is possible.
As far as agreeing/disagreeing? I'm just trying to point out the futility in arguing for one side or the other.