I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!

[Hermit]

Steps required:

1. The chemistry for DNA to develop.
2. Evolution by natural selection to develop.
3. Self aware human beings (with language [seems to be the key] ability to develop.
4. Above beings to develop capitalism based entertainment systems in which to postulate future cosmic human endeavour in the course of offering entertainment diversion the Star Treek franchise.
5. Sad twat invents enemy alien language.

I mean - what are the odds?

Whatever they are, the crucial part leading to the "therefore God" conclusion is that at some point odds must turn from "unlikely" to "impossible". That would imply a categorical change. Nobody, to my knowledge, has yet identified the location of that point. Until someone does, odds - no matter how huge - cannot metamorphose from "(incredibly extremely) unlikely" to "impossible". The "therefore God" conclusion thus ironically rests on an appeal to incredulity.

[surreptitious57]

Life would only take one second or so to get started

3,500,000,000 years of life on Earth (mimimum) X 365 =
1,277,500,000,000 days X 24 =
30,660,000,000 hours X 60 =
1,839,600,000,000,000 minutes X 60 =
110,376,000,000,000 seconds

After 800, 000, 000 years of the planet
doing nothing much in order to get to that
first self replicating cell dividing bit of germ
floating on the surface of the primordial sludge

[Tero]

All those numbers are pretty meaningless. Once you have a mechanism with all the steps required you can do all the calculating. Papers like this will eventually show some route:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0904/0904.0402.pdf

[Gawdzilla Sama]

My post represent opportunities for life to occur.

[Pappa]

Steps required:

1. The chemistry for DNA to develop.
2. Evolution by natural selection to develop.
3. Self aware human beings (with language [seems to be the key] ability to develop.
4. Above beings to develop capitalism based entertainment systems in which to postulate future cosmic human endeavour in the course of offering entertainment diversion the Star Treek franchise.
5. Sad twat invents enemy alien language.

I mean - what are the odds?

Evolution by natural selection isn't something that develops.... it's just a consequence of the imperfect copying process of self-replicating molecules (and organisms).

[Clinton Huxley]

We don't know what the odds of our particular flavour of life developing are. We don't know what the odds of any type of life developing are. We only have one data-point. Find other life in the solar system, even fossilised, and the odds just got a lot better. And it seems that life developed on the Earth within 500 million years of its formation - or just about as soon as it was physically possible for life to develop.

The odds probably aren't as bad as one might think...

[JimC]

And, in the entire Multiverse, only a handful of Universes have the physical parameters that allow life to evolve...

And we are inhabiting one!

Freaky, or what!

[Rum]

Steps required:

1. The chemistry for DNA to develop.
2. Evolution by natural selection to develop.
3. Self aware human beings (with language [seems to be the key] ability to develop.
4. Above beings to develop capitalism based entertainment systems in which to postulate future cosmic human endeavour in the course of offering entertainment diversion the Star Treek franchise.
5. Sad twat invents enemy alien language.

I mean - what are the odds?

Evolution by natural selection isn't something that develops.... it's just a consequence of the imperfect copying process of self-replicating molecules (and organisms).

No it either happens or it doesn't. But I wonder on how many planets and in how many little pools of sludge chemistry did that, only to be blasted to kingdom come by a volcano or passing meteorite.

My main point (in the OP) was that a lottery winner has the evidence in front of them (i.e. the winning ticket!) that hugely improbable things happen, so even if it turns out that life is very very rare as we know it, we know it has happened at the very least once, no matter if the odds are vanishingly small.

[Loki]

The odds that life developed are precisely 1.

No matter how wooists want to slice it the odds that life, or even particular and specific examples of life, developed remain precisely 1.

[Hermit]

My main point (in the OP) was that a lottery winner has the evidence in front of them (i.e. the winning ticket!) that hugely improbable things happen, so even if it turns out that life is very very rare as we know it, we know it has happened at the very least once, no matter if the odds are vanishingly small.

Yes, and then the theists say that they are so small as to make the emergence of life impossible unless created by a supernatural, omniscient, omnipotent being. Therefore god.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And, in the entire Multiverse, only a handful of Universes have the physical parameters that allow life to evolve...

And we are inhabiting one!

Freaky, or what!

Nope. If we didn't have the right conditions here, we wouldn't be here. It's like firing an arrow at a wall with a small hole in it. If you don't hit the hole, the arrow doesn't go through. An entire army could fire arrows at the wall, and most of them would fail to go through. There would be nothing special about the arrow that does, it would just be the one that had conditions favorable to making it through.

[JimC]

And, in the entire Multiverse, only a handful of Universes have the physical parameters that allow life to evolve...

And we are inhabiting one!

Freaky, or what!

Nope. If we didn't have the right conditions here, we wouldn't be here. It's like firing an arrow at a wall with a small hole in it. If you don't hit the hole, the arrow doesn't go through. An entire army could fire arrows at the wall, and most of them would fail to go through. There would be nothing special about the arrow that does, it would just be the one that had conditions favorable to making it through.

The "freaky" thing was my attempt at sarcastic humour...

[Robert_S]

And, in the entire Multiverse, only a handful of Universes have the physical parameters that allow life to evolve...

And we are inhabiting one!

Freaky, or what!

What are the odds that any given multiverse would contain at least one universe that contained at least one galaxy that contained at least one star that had at least one planet orbiting it that is capable of giving rise to and supporting life?

[JimC]

And, in the entire Multiverse, only a handful of Universes have the physical parameters that allow life to evolve...

And we are inhabiting one!

Freaky, or what!

What are the odds that any given multiverse would contain at least one universe that contained at least one galaxy that contained at least one star that had at least one planet orbiting it that is capable of giving rise to and supporting life?

I am being an old fuddy-duddy, and assuming only one Multiverse...

If an unlimited number of universes can "bud off" from it, then the odds would approach certainty, I would think...

[Berthold]

Creotards are cosmic narcissists ..

A classic