For any given planet that matches earth’s profile, with the exception of said planet? Very low, I would assume. But not zero.
Deal!
Yes, but in order to speculate on probabilities of life arising (given a planet identical to earth), we would require some knowledge of mechanisms.
At present, we have numerous theories regarding the appearance of life, and each would have its own probability.
Evidently there was one specific mechanism that resulted in what we see around us. What are the odds of that mechanism recurring on Earth Mk II?
This leads us to the discussion above: we just don’t know. So all we can do is speculate.
Nobody is arguing that it’s a certainty, but given the astronomical numbers of trials and the knowledge we already have that the chances are non-zero, it would have to be shown what so special and unique about the earth that natural processes which occurred here can’t occur on any of the other trillions of planets and moons in the universe.
Yes, probably non zero; but also probably infinitesimally small.
To repeat: reconstruct Sagan’s list then figure the odds.
Gotta go earn a living.
Why restrict this example to the heart? Why not extend it to the kidneys, and say that if an organism has two kidneys all other members of the species will have two kidneys? Or that if it has a gall bladder all members will have a gall bladder? Or even the lungs.
The reason you picked the heart is because you know from experience that the heart is an invariant organ. All you are doing is extrapolating from the knowledge we have of all other species here on Earth. That is perfectly valid and logical of course, but by definition it means your sample size is not one. You are actually just drawing your conclusions from multiple *prior *samples.
If you were not doing this then you would be able to do it with any organ, including lungs or kidneys. But we also know from prior example that those things really do vary within species so you don’t use those as examples.
Or to look at it another way, you go to an another planet. You discover hundreds of individuals of an organism, and some have hearts and some do not. The next day you discover a single specimen of a clearly closely related organism with a heart. Do you conclude that all organisms of that species have a heart?
If so, how can you do so logically?
If not, then doesn’t this prove that all you are doing is extrapolating from previous multiple samples which indicate potential variability?
Why would you think that a sample is representative unless you have multiple samples? What you mean of course is if you *know *the sample is representative because it is just one of many samples of a similar type. That;s valid, but by definition it means that your conclusions are not being drawn from a single sample.
Yeah, it really is. Inferences on species typology can only be drawn on the basis of pre-existing knowledge of other samples within the same clade. Believe me, on this subject I know whereof I speak. This is why you can draw conclusions about hearts in species with invariant hearts, but not about other organs that are just as vital to life but that are not known to be invariant. Which is why entomologists don’t draw conclusions about the wingless state based on single specimens.
Well I am doing that too. But it’s somewhat of a side issue in this thread, since the real problem arises from the self selection.
Because it is incorrect, and we are here to fight ignorance. You always need more than one degree of freedom to draw valid conclusions.
Sagan’s conditions would occur billions of times in the universe.
By the way, where did you get that nonsense about Sagan considering religion? He was emphatically atheistic to the end.
Really? Sure you don’t want to reconsider?
Winged individuals are rare in that and many other aphid species. Looking at that first page you’re gonna owe me about 100, 000 dollars. 
I ask
FOR THE ELEVENTH TIME IN THIS THREAD.
Since this is GQ, can you please show us the equations that you used to ascertain these probabilities? Because this is GQ, and not the forum for baseless opinions, so you must have calculated such probabilities before declaring what they are smaller than.
ELEVEN TIMES DIO HAS BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION.
At what stage can we legitimately declare that he can’t answer and is just making shit up?
Count the stars.
:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
The odds of life arising on any given planet are 100%?
I think Dio just lost any credibility he may have had.
But hey, just for fun, how about answering my question.
I ask
FOR THE TWELFTH TIME IN THIS THREAD.
Since this is GQ, can you please show us the equations that you used to ascertain these probabilities? Because this is GQ, and not the forum for baseless opinions, so you must have calculated such probabilities before declaring what they are smaller than.
TWELVE TIMES DIO HAS BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION.
At what stage can we legitimately declare that he can’t answer and is just making shit up?
Your question is bullshit. It’s just a question of counting the stars. There isn’t any “equation.” That’s a red herring.
I also know that it’s a waste of time to engage with creationists.
The probability that life develops assuming optimal conditions is extremely hard to calculate, and there is one very good reason to believe it to be very small: it might have only happened once on Earth since all cellular life on earth might be related. It seems somewhat uncontroversial that all eukaryotes are related, so the question comes down to whether the various lines of prokaryotes arose independently or not. I’m not a biologist of any sort, so I don’t know exactly how close the metabolic pathways are between the three currently recognized domains of life. It’s possible that they are all similar enough to have evolved from a single primitive cell, but it’s also possible that they arose independently because it’s the most efficient way to organize self-replication and they out-competed any other self-replicating organic material.
Note that I specified cellular life and self-replicating. It seems clear that viruses, which are neither cells nor capable of reproducing without using a cell, are not related to cellular life and it’s reasonable to believe that the various families of viruses arose completely independently. Additionally, there are sub-viral agents that probably also arose independently, as well as prions, each of which is likely sui generis.
How reasonable is it to think, though, that there were other types of organisms that could replicate without using the machinery developed in other forms of life? If such a development is likely, why don’t we see cellular life with other metabolic pathways? Even more specifically, why does all life use molecules of the same chirality? Stereoisomers should form in roughly equal quantities, be equally likely to commence self-replication, and are generally biologically inert with each other. If life is likely to develop, why haven’t organisms developed that use the mirror-image versions of all the chiral molecules important to life? Were our versions were so aggressively successful that they found their way throughout the entirety of the planet before a system of opposite chirality developed and were able to scoop up all the non-chiral building blocks?
If there’s a good answer to this question, I believe it will be answered better through biology than through astronomy.
I find this really interesting (wrong, of course - but interesting).
Dio has been arguing weakly, but with great vehemence. It turns out the reason is a matter of religion - he thinks that Blake’s position aligns with ID doctrine and must therefore be opposed by true believers, lest a heretical belief appear tenable.
Relax, Dio. Whereas proof of extraterrestrial life would certainly be another big nail in the coffin of ID, the lack of this isn’t support for it. And Blake’s position that conclusions must be based on evidence rather than belief is in fact the best argument against ID.
I said that for all we know the odds against life developing on *any *planet could be 10^87.
You stated ,for a fact, that the odds were much lower than that.
It is not a red herring to ask you how you know the odds are lower than that.
At this stage we are not discussing the odds of life developing in the whole universe. I just want to know how you got the answer to the odds of life developing on any individual planet potentially capable of suporting life. The fℓ term in the Drake Equation.
You shot your mouth off and told everybody that it couldn’t be 1/10^87. It had to be much higher than that.
You also told us that you had calculated it using the Drake Equation.
So come on DIO, answer the simple questions.
-
How do you know that the probability is much higher than 1/10^87.? You said it was much higher. You stated that as fact in GQ. Now tell us how you know that.
-
Show us the calculation you claimed to have done using the Drake Equation that gave you this answer. You told us that you had done the caculations and that the answer you derived agreed that the probability was much higher than 1/10^87. So show us the calculations.
Come on Dio.
I ask
FOR THE THIRTEENTH TIME IN THIS THREAD.
Since this is GQ, can you please show us the equations that you used to ascertain these probabilities? Because this is GQ, and not the forum for baseless opinions, so you must have calculated such probabilities before declaring what they are smaller than.
THIRTEEN TIMES DIO HAS BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION.
At what stage can we legitimately declare that he can’t answer and is just making shit up?
Do you think it has escaped anybody’s notice that you are running scared and unable to put up? 
And? I am not a creationist. Even a cursory search of posting history will prove that. Even if I were, this is just an ad hominem, because nobody in this thread has mentioned creationism.
But it does give you a rather weak excuse to flee the thread rather than admit that you made shit up in GQ, right Dio. Like that nonsense about the anthropic principle not applying.
Do you think it has escaped anybody’s notice that you are running scared and unable to put up?
Not at all. Dio claims that he did it in less than 40minutes, using the Drake equation.
But apparently the results and methodology is top secret, and if he has to show us he will then have to kill us all.
Well, I mainly mean that’s it’s possible they aren’t related. It’s also reasonable to think that stuff happened to primitive cells that turned them into viruses. Again, not a biologist so I don’t know much of the details.
it is not impossible that there is another life on another planet, therefore it is probable that life exists.
No, I stated that planets with conditions analogous to earth were much lower than that. It then becomes incumbent upon you to show why earth is unique in its statistical ability to produce life.