Re: How did life begin?
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I mean really the only thing needed is a replicating molecule to occur anywhere amongst the billions and billions of collisions, between molecules and atoms, following the laws of chemistry, that would occur anywhere, billions and billions of places, billions and billions of such collisions in the period of time considered, even on earth alone. The first replicator thus accidentally formed is most likely to win and is by all definitions alive.
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Midge,
I think you're trivializing the enormity of the problem. Abiogenesis is far from a solved problem, and you require a lot more steps than just a replicator. The are huge number of intermediate steps needed, and the best experts in the world currently have no clue how they occured and no credible pathway through that maze. A simple molecule soup of trillions to the nth power, in the absence of other factors, is not enough to generate life.
Obviously, people who believe God started it are pitiful clowns, but you're making an error here too. To state that abiogenesis is almost certain requires placing faith in materialism and the current model of natural history. It is not science.
Who knows what weird result we will find (maybe something as unlikely as Panspermia?). Curious minds have certainly been surprised in the past.
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