Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The so called odds of anything at all having occurred the apparent way they have to produce life are staggering and probably inconceivable. I am not a particularly religious person but if you want an example of a miracle I think this would suffice.
One image that I find fascinating is the image showing the observable universe as a tiny bubble in a vast, possibly never-ending, sea of space.
The so called odds of anything at all having occurred the apparent way they have to produce life are staggering and probably inconceivable. I am not a particularly religious person but if you want an example of a miracle I think this would suffice.
One image that I find fascinating is the image showing the observable universe as a tiny bubble in a vast, possibly never-ending, sea of space.
I don't think anybody actually knows the odds, so your opinion is just as valid as anybody else. All we can do is make education guesses. As for it being a miracle, no I don't believe that. Life is based on ordinary chemistry, not metaphysical processes. There's nothing particularly unique about our circumstances.
I don't think anybody actually knows the odds, so your opinion is just as valid as anybody else. All we can do is make education guesses. As for it being a miracle, no I don't believe that. Life is based on ordinary chemistry, not metaphysical processes. There's nothing particularly unique about our circumstances.
Life is based on ordinary chemistry, but the chemical accident that originated the self-replicating molecules (RNA and DNA) had an incredibly high probabilty of not happening anywhere in the Universe in its first decillion of years.
If the Universe is really just a dozen billion years old, then it is incredibly young to have RNA and DNA emerging anywhere in it already. One can even wonder if the fact that this highly unprobable chemical accident had enough time to occur is not a proof in itself that something is wrong with the Big Bang theory and that the Universe is much, much older than just a dozen billion years.
Life is based on ordinary chemistry, but the chemical accident that originated the self-replicating molecules (RNA and DNA) had an incredibly high probabilty of not happening anywhere in the Universe in its first decillion of years.
If the Universe is really just a dozen billion years old, then it is incredibly young to have RNA and DNA emerging anywhere in it already. One can even wonder if the fact that this highly unprobable chemical accident had enough time to occur is not a proof in itself that something is wrong with the Big Bang theory and that the Universe is much, much older than just a dozen billion years.
Since we have a sample size of one, there's no way to confirm your "findings".
Life is based on ordinary chemistry, but the chemical accident that originated the self-replicating molecules (RNA and DNA) had an incredibly high probabilty of not happening anywhere in the Universe in its first decillion of years.
If the Universe is really just a dozen billion years old, then it is incredibly young to have RNA and DNA emerging anywhere in it already. One can even wonder if the fact that this highly unprobable chemical accident had enough time to occur is not a proof in itself that something is wrong with the Big Bang theory and that the Universe is much, much older than just a dozen billion years.
New research is coming out these days that peptides and other small building blocks do form and can combine in space, and all over. Not just on this planet. So if it happened on Earth, it can happen elsewhere.
DNA and RNA look like a statistically improbable (very improbable actually) "chemical accident" that happened on Earth, creating the basis for self-replicating lifeforms, and is very unlikely to happen in any other planets, even if they have the exact same physical and chemical conditions of Earth when DNA and RNA first appeared here.
Even if that "chemical accident" happened in another planet, it would be statistically improbable that evolution in that planet would create macroscopic multicellular life. And if that happend, it would be even more statistically improbable that evolution there would eventually give rise to some kind of intelligent species capable of creating complex language and building things. And even if there was some intelligent species capable of creating complex language and building things, it would be very unlikely that they would make the same discoveries that Earth's homo sapiens made, specially those about electromagnetism, chemistry, and the structure of atoms.
That's why I think it's very improbable that exists any intelligent civilization that is technologically more developed than homo sapiens in some other planet. Well, at least here in Laniakea...
I'm not sure it is even knowable that it is statistically improbable. But...
There are between 6 and 20 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. On average, each galaxy contains approximately 100 billion stars. Assuming each star has about 1.6 planets on average, we can estimate the total number of planets in the observable universe: greater than 6 trillion galaxies × 100 billion stars per galaxy × 1.6 planets per star = greater than 9.6 × 10^24 planets. This is a staggering number, equivalent to greater than 9,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets.
To put it in perspective, there are only about 7.5 × 10^21 grains of sand on Earth.
However, it's important to note that this is just an estimate for the observable universe. The actual number of planets in the entire universe is likely much higher, as the unobservable universe is estimated to be at least 23 trillion light-years in diameter, which is at least 15,126,368 times larger than the observable universe.
Last edited by moguldreamer; 04-25-2024 at 09:33 PM..
If the Universe is really just a dozen billion years old, then it is incredibly young to have RNA and DNA emerging anywhere in it already. One can even wonder if the fact that this highly unprobable chemical accident had enough time to occur is not a proof in itself that something is wrong with the Big Bang theory and that the Universe is much, much older than just a dozen billion years.
Not only is it not a chemical accident, but it has occurred elsewhere.
These “nucleobases” — adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil — combine with sugars and phosphates to make up the genetic code of all life on Earth. Whether these basic ingredients for life first came from space or instead formed in a warm soup of earthly chemistry is still not known (SN: 9/24/20). But the discovery adds to evidence that suggests life’s precursors originally came from space, the researchers say.
The precursors of RNA have been found in star-forming molecular clouds, and can form in space as soon as there is nitrogen, carbon, and phosphorus available. There's nothing particularly unique about our Solar System to cause DNA and RNA to form. It's everywhere that stars can form.
Simplest answer is that complex life occurred on this planet, so it can occur on another planet. Sure, it won’t be plentiful, but it can occur. There are plenty of hydrocarbons and amino acids in the universe.
I completely agree. I mean the only planets we are able to examine at all well are within our own solar system, so that's a very small sample as a fraction of the universe - 1 star's planets! I expect that there are countless other planets with life on them in the universe. Now that doesn't need to be life *exactly* like here, and it doesn't mean we'll meet any of that life any time soon - the universe is vast and it's mostly empty space. But I assume that there is plenty of other life out there, and including advanced life forms. Other than faith-based assertions that earth or our sun is the center of the universe and we are the chosen ones, etc, (which have fallen one by one) there is just no reason to think that earth is unique - no scientific reason anyway.
Last edited by OutdoorLover; 04-27-2024 at 03:43 PM..
The JWST is supposed to image the universe as it was a little while after the Big Bang (which is just a theory anyway) which suggests that if we go back to the year dot, we find how the universe was at the point of the Big Bang.
How can we go negative (so-to-speak) ? How can we go to zero? It just does not make any sense unless we have the whole concept of 'universe' completely wrong. OK, so it is all we have at the moment and many people cannot conceive of anything outside of what we have, but there MUST be something there, some other explanation which fits the evidence we see all around us.
Or.. maybe what we see is not the reality of it all?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
