Shii Posted:

I understand that; thusly why the probability of the random acids combining correctly being so completely unfathomable. The simplest eukaryotic bacterium still has thousands and thousands of letters of DNA to it; it only takes one being placed wrongly to potentially kill it.

You take the probability of each independant acid combining correctly, with a very sparse amount of stimuli that can make this occur (obviously sparse, since science has proven repeatedly life doesn’t spntaneously generate in a lab) and the billion years or so that it took to happen suddenly look very insignificant indeed.

“Life” (in the sense of simple, replicating molecules) *has* been spontaneously generated under early earth conditions in a lab. These conditions are unlikely, but not impossible in a short time span. But we’re talking billions of years. This molecule was not made of conventional DNA or RNA, either. It shows that the universe can have more than one type of life-forming reaction. How about viruses? Some are so simple they have almost no genome. They are not technically considered “alive”, but they ARE evolving particles nonetheless. Not all mutations would kill a bacterium, and a wrongly placed DNA nucleotide could be beneficial.

Do you really believe the endless molecular collisions in space would not result in at least *one* durable replicating biomolecule?