It’s not really news after a decade, but I still think it’s worth a look. This is something I think about sometimes, and it’s better to let the actual scholars speak.

For whatever reason it’s not mentioned as a candidate great filter very often even though nearly all the later steps on the path to complexity have happened more than once, and there’s lots of habitable looking exoplanets.

Edit: To be clear, this says that just because life started early on Earth, doesn’t really provide much evidence it’s an easy process, if you allow that it could possibly be very unlikely indeed.

  • luciole@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    8 months ago

    Ah OK, so this paper argues that given the right conditions the appearance of life is not necessarily likely. Basically it’s hard to know for sure with a single example (Earth). If it is in fact unlikely, it could explain why we haven’t met extraterrestrial life already. Thanks!

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      Yes! Although it’s less “right conditions” and more “spontaneous appearance, given perfect conditions”.