evolution...?

Question

if a planet identical to ours (same sun, gravity, etc) was to form, is it inevitable that life would evolve in the exact same way it has on earth. Is evolution predetermined?

Answer 1

No, Evolution is a series of "what ifs". We're here (and all other flora and fauna for that matter) because of changes in evolution....mass extinctions, mega ice ages and natural disasters.

For these to be repeated on a different identical world would involve incalculable odds

Answer 2

I wish those creationist evolution deniers would just stop trying to argue such crap.

There is two questions here which could be looked at separately. Firstly, no, there is a statistical chance that life could evolve similarly but the odds are probably ridiculous and certainly incalculable. However, according to many evolutionary biologists eyeballs for example are thought to have evolved independently several times. This suggests that evolution sometimes finds similar solutions to similar problems, even when other factors may vary.
The elusive deciding factor of how similar intelligent alien life would probably be is how special are the conditions necessary for intelligent life to evolve in the first place. With the vastness of the universe, scientists estimates vary drastically. Is all life carbon based or is there many more varieties.. no one can tell for certain.

The question of "is evolution predetermined?" can be answered in a more universal context. Determinism is a concept that has been studied by philosophers and physicists alike. Einstein calculated the orbits of the planets far more accurately than Newton thus predicting their futures to a pinpoint. He believe that with enough present information the past and future of everything could be calculated. Quantum mechanics on the other hand is relatively incompatible with this idea and works on the basis of chance occurrences. I guess if existence is predetermined then we aren't nor will probably ever be clever enough to actually tell the future and past with 100% certainty. In my opinion, nothing feels predetermined about the future beyond the plain 'smack in da face' obvious.

Answer 3

You should read some Stephen J Gould. In many of his books and articles he discusses the role of "contingency", by which he basically means chance, in the role of evolution. There are so many factors in the natural environment that affect the evolution of life that the odds are enormously against the same pattern of evolution repeating elsewhere. And this is even excluding random events such as aseroid impacts or other cataclysms which apparently have been extremely important in causing massive and relatively instantaneous changes in teh course of evolution.

Imagine throwing a handful of dice over and over again, a hundred times. Then do it again; the chance of repeating the same sequence of results (rolled numbers) is ridiculously small and that is more or less how you need to look at evolutionary development - the odds are tremendously against repeating the same sequence elsewhere.

Of course, if a million monkeys hitting a million typewriters can eventually luck out and reproduce all of shakespeare`s plays, then a close repetiton of earth evolution is, I suppose, possible somewhere given that there are an infinite number of stars and planets out there.

But I wouldn`t bet on it.

Answer 4

No.

If conditions were identical, there are a million gazillion different chance occurrences in every facet once out of the starting gate. Some of the chance elements that could turn out differently that would massively impact developing life are: bodies from space getting through our atmosphere, the composition of our atmosphere changing, DNA in any flora or fauna replicating with different mutations or errors that stick, etc, etc. In a way, it is the same question that has been answered about identical twins grow up to be different people.

One of the beauties of evolution is the random element of change, mutation and then adaptation. Could be that in a twin Earth, the dinosaurs don't die out and eventually develop written language. Could you imagine a world in which a chorus of brontosaurus sang as if in a barbershop quartet?!

Answer 5

No. There are so many ways life can evolve. During the Cambrian there were many different morphological plans. It may have been little more than serendipitous that the plan that formed the basis for all vertebrate life survived. And during the later Permian, so many forms evolved that were so different from what we have now. If not for the Permian/Triassic mass extinction, which nearly killed all life on Earth (99.9% of all life; 96% of all species and 92% of all genus beacme extinct), later life forms as we now know them would not have evolved. All current species on our planet, including humans, are the result of many "accidental" events that happened along the ay.

Answer 6

Evolution is not predetermined.
Evolution has not even occured on earth.
It is a philosphical (religious) idea, thta is *not* supported by the evidence. It is easily refuted by a little diligence.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4013/

Evolutionists will often use tricks like equivocation to persuade the unwary. For example they point to change due to natural selection (finches beaks, sickle cell anemia, lions/tigers, etc), which everyone agrees occurs. They then claim that this proves goo-to-you evolution. It does nothing of the sort.

Before just rejecting the claims of creationists as naive, try checking out the evidence for yourself. Search of your favourite piece of evolutionary evidence at http://www.creationontheweb.com/ and see what they have to say.

Remember, the evidence does not speak for itself. It has to be *interpreted*. One question to ask is what are the interpreters assumptions. Noone is unbiased. Some people try to fit the evidence into their evolutionary presuppositions, but that doesn't mean it the right set of presuppositions.

Check it out for yourself.

Answer 7

no - too many factors to do with time. On earth, many species have disappeared due to human impacts - how will u know it won't happen on another planet?

Its like clones - they may have the exact same original dna or data as the original, but once they start living or exist on their own - they are there own beings because they make their own choices and follow paths that they choose.

Answer 8

It would depend on a persons beliefs. If you believe in God, then you could say that he/she would have to build this other planet and put Adam and Eve no2 on it so that they would reproduce etc.
But on that note...if his/her intentions were to be the same, as when earth was formed; God didn't wish for them to reproduce (forbiddon fruit etc) then who's to say that his/her plans would'nt go accordingly this time around and therefore no reproduction and things would not be the same.

then again, if you go by the big bang theory, how do we know for sure that it wasn't caused by a planet just like ours combusting?

Perhaps, now that we're well on our way to ruining our planet, it will eventually explode, thus causing another big bang and due to all the crap we have invented and used on our planet, such as man made chemicals; the planet formed by this next big bang would be entirley different.

Makes one really explore the endless possibilities!

Answer 9

In my own opinion, no. Evolution is relative to everything in the universes, therefore different conditions would apply. No matter that we evolved one way, because of the place in the universe that the new Earth is, evolution would probably take a different twist.

Answer 10

Two answers - NO, life development is fortuitous and NO evolution almost certainly would not follow the same pattern why should all life have 5 fingers as an example.
What the alternatives are I do not have the slightest idea!
RoyS