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Ok, I'll own up: it was me! 
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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No need for a creator creator - it's turtles all the way down!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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But consider the awesomeness of a creator who sets up the laws of physics and then, using entropy (i.e., chaos) as the driving force, gives the universe a push and see how it unfolds.
Certainly more realistic then thinking everything was per-configured and even worse, predestined.
Consider the creator as far more intelligent then not considering that creatures should evolve to adapt to the changing environment - and if one allows for this concept, why not start at a single point and see what happens?
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos wrote: and if one allows for this concept, why not start at a single point and see what happens?
Sounds fun. It just isn't what happened.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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RyanDev wrote: It just isn't what happened.
Well then . . . please give us your first-person account of what did happen. Some of us may have missed the event.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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I know what you mean, but if one "spot" got in there first, it would have an advantage over late comers - which could easily be definitive - in numbers if nothing else. Remember the speed with which primitive life forms can reproduce (bacteria can reproduce every 15 minutes, not that they are that simple) and how fast they could fill an area, particularly if the the seas are very "active" - which they probably were given the Earth was rotating every 12 hours or so in those days - and how quickly they could be distributed over a wide range. Add in evolution on those really short breeding times, and it wouldn't take much for a single seed to go global.
And we would see massive differences at the bottom levels if modern life did come from different initial solutions, I'd have thought.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: if one "spot" got in there first, it would have an advantage over late comers
Logically, that would be possible. But if that were the case we'd be a planet full of a single dominant predator and nothing else.
Nature always finds a balance and doesn't always follow our logic.
OriginalGriff wrote: And we would see massive differences at the bottom levels if modern life did come from different initial solutions, I'd have thought.
Number of species on Earth tagged at 8.7 million[^]
..with the subtitle: "Most precise estimate yet suggests more than 80% of species still undiscovered." - there are massive differences across all levels.
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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Brent Jenkins wrote: if that were the case we'd be a planet full of a single dominant predator and nothing else
No - because evolution is random.
One organism mutates this way, another mutates that way. Because there is effectively no competition there is space for all but the most anti-survival mutations to thrive, until the available "living spaces" start to fill up. Then you get competition driving evolution, and "fitter" versions doing well at the expense of "less fit" ones. The rapid breeding rate helps here by speeding up the production of mutants, and thus of diversification.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Yes, evolution does appear random - which kind of goes against the idea of life springing up solely (uniformly, you might say) in one form in one place.. 
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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Not really - Evolution is a process (a directionless process) which can't even start until there is something reproducing, and "making mistakes" when it does so. If the first organism always produced an identical copy of itself with no changes at all then there is nothing to start the process going.
If you have two independent sources then it's probably easier - but in a surprisingly short number of generations mutations can make two variants sufficiently different that they might have well have started from different "seeds" to begin with! 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: If you have two independent sources then it's probably easier - but in a surprisingly short number of generations mutations can make two variants sufficiently different that they might have well have started from different "seeds" to begin with!
In nature, the simplest answer is usually the closest to being correct
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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But which is the "simplest"?
That probably depends on how complicated it was to produce "life" from scratch - and I suspect it isn't trivial - but it's not likely we will ever know for sure.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Brent Jenkins wrote: Logically, that would be possible. But if that were the case we'd be a planet full of a single dominant predator and nothing else.
Not true. As a species spreads, environmental factors have a large impact on how they adapt over time to the point where you get a different species. Over a long period of time, a predator may not even be a predator any more because of a lack of the food it considers normal. You get different species with a common ancestor.
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote: You get different species with a common ancestor.
True, but saying that every species has the same, single ancestor doesn't make sense. We're basically back at a 21st century equivalent of "God".
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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Brent Jenkins wrote: but saying that every species has the same, single ancestor doesn't make sense.
Actually it CAN make sense. It is a possibility. "Likeliness" is not a concern. What is important is finding all possibilities for the origin of life and eliminating or advancing them with evidence and experimentation.
Possibility 1) Everything descended from a single original organism.
Possibility 2) There may have been multiple original organisms in various parts of the world, eventually meeting up and creating new species.
Possibility 3) Life originated somewhere else and was deposited here by an impactor of some kind, be it dust, comet, or asteroid.
Possibility 4) Any combination of the above.
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Like I said, we're back to {enter your entity of choice} created all life
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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OriginalGriff wrote: humans started in a small region of Africa,
Homo sapiens origins appear to be in a single place. Hominids however not so much. Besides, the expansion potential for homo sapiens was, I would venture to suggest, rather greater than strands of DNA that hadn't yet figured out how to make a cell!
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Considering how unlikely the life-creating event is, even when all the right stuff is in the right place, a single-event is probable. Once established, it can spread as it mutates into endless diversity.
That being said, time has been around a long time - so other events may have occurred and if they compete for resources then only one version may survive - either because it's more efficient, or very likely because it got there first.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos wrote: Considering how unlikely the life-creating event is, even when all the right stuff is in the right place, a single-event is probable.
That's the real question right there: how easy or difficult is it for life to get started?
If it's very difficult, then the single event is likely. If it's easy, then the single event is unlikely.
Personally, I'd be very surprised if our own solar system isn't full of life.
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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Brent Jenkins wrote: Personally, I'd be very surprised if our own solar system isn't full of life.
And for that, time is on your side (at least five billion years worth of it, so far).
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Brent Jenkins wrote: Personally, I'd be very surprised if our own solar system isn't full of life.
It is. It's just all on one planet!
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Is our planet the whole solar system? 
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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 If a pond is full of fish and I then herd all the fish into one corner of that pond is the pond no longer full of fish? Is there not an abundance of fish in the pond irrespective of where they happen to be? Is there no possibility of a superfluity of fish as long as there is some part of the water in which there is no fish? Has the word 'full' suddenly acquired a meaning requiring even distribution or it doesn't count?
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