The creation of life?

Question

I had this thought. Surely the conditions for the creation of life still exist here on our planet and has always existed not only x million years ago. If this assumption is correct. Then in our planets natural laboritory in some places , life is still going through the same creation process that it did in the past. Would not investigation of this, settle the question once and for all how life got started ? ( from a layman )

Answer 1

No. Any organic macromolecules that are assembled by natural chemical reactions now get eaten as food by living microorganisms and so never have the opportunity to start a new evolutionary process.

Answer 2

Earth was rather different 3.5 billion years ago when life first developed (don't say created - it gets misunderstood).

However, where on Earth organic molecules started self replicating is a big part of this question. Some say, in the early oceans (which were like a primordial chemical soup), some say in the deep oceans near hot springs, some say deep in the crust of the solid Earth in fractures. Maybe it was all three. Today, it is around hot springs and also deep in the crust of the Earth where we find the most primitive microbes.

So, maybe new life forms are forming from inorganic matter (abiogenesis) and we just haven't observed it yet. Or maybe, since life has taken off and been so successful the way it has, it's more difficult for abiogenesis to occur because the life forms that we have now are are better at taking the resources that are needed for abiogenesis to occur.

Either way, it's not productive to give up on science and turn supernatural explanations...

Answer 3

It's a bit simplistic to say that "the conditions for the creation of life still exist here on our planet and has always existed not only x million years ago," since life first arose billions of years ago, and conditions on Earth are very different now. But if scientists could show that new life was being created today, it would indeed settle things quite thoroughly.

Answer 4

There are two important differences between the earth today and the earth 4.6 billion years ago:

1. The earth itself (including the oceans, atmosphere, etc.) is *VERY* different. For example:
a - There was almost no oxygen then, there is now (oxygen is toxic to biochemicals). Oxygen is a byproduct of life itself (photosynthesis in bacteria and plants).
b - With no oxygen, there is no ozone, which is the main filter in today's atmosphere that protects from UV radiation.
c - There was far more volcanic activity ... this changes the nature of the gasses in the atmosphere. But it also means there were a lot more steam vents at the bottom of water bodies ... which is one of the most likely environments for early biochemistry.
d - Lots of other differences.

2 - There is life today. If a primitive form of biochemical life were to start evolving today ... it would quickly be seen as "lunch" for existing life forms. In other words it is *very* difficult for life to evolve on a planet in which other life forms already exist.

So it is NOT true that life would have evolved several times.

Answer 5

Your initial assumption is off.

The planet is no where near what it was like when it first started. Similar, and only in the regards of near the bottom of the crust.

The fact is, the air, chemicals, and temperature are all different than they were when the planet began.




And even if you proved it, or disproved it, it would never settle anything. People just want to argue

Answer 6

Nope, we assume that conditions today are much different from the time abiogenesis was taking place. The biggest change is that there's life aplenty on Earth now. Living organisms tend to consume, break down, interact with biologically interesting molecules. New micelles would just get digested by pre-existing life.

Another change is that there's lots of free oxygen in the atmosphere now (thanks to photosynthesis). It's impossible for most biologically interesting macromolecules to form from purely physical processes these days.

Answer 7

Even people who believe life started spontaneously on Earth say the odds against it are something like 1 in 10 to the several trillionth power. The phase creationists like to throw around is that the odds of life starting on Earth, with no outside help, are roughly equal to the odds of tornado assembling a 747 as it goes through a junk yard.
The last time I did some research on this the general theory was that life started somewhere else and came to Earth later on an Asteroid or something.
So it's pretty unlikely we would ever be able to see it happen. If life did spontaneously start on Earth odds are it never will again.

Answer 8

You'd have to go back to the oceans to see if you can find any new organisms. Plus you would have to check out areas where the waters are warm and shallow and protected. All of earth's life forms originated from the sea, so any further new life forms would have to come from there as well. The sea is earth's laboratory.

Answer 9

The chances of life spontaneously forming is small. It took 1.7 billion years for life to form. We'd have to be very patient and live really long if we want to actually observe the process of life forming.
Maybe if humans live till 1.7 billion A.D., we'll see another life form spontaneously emerge. But remember, that's enough time for at least 100,000 asteroids (each big enough to cause global destruction) to hit the Earth.

Answer 10

The problem is that with all the existing life, any new life would barely get started b4 something far more advanced in the same niche would eat it up.