Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
I don’t think it’s a given that water, energy, and chemical processes are bound to create life. We have lots of that on Earth and it is not like it happens all the time here. As far as we know, over billions of years, abiogenesis only happened once here.
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If life were to happen it probably wouldn't survive very long, as the existing life would take it out. For example, you wouldn't have a large stew of amino acids and carbohydrates without existing life consuming it.
In order for life to involve a second time, it would have to happen in a sterile environment that is also conducive to life evolving.
There also is some ongoing research to show that life may have evolved more than once on Earth. Most life is microbial, and we have a very poor knowledge of that life. We haven't sampled and then molecularly examined every microbe from every nook and cranny. In fact, we've likely only examined a very small fraction and largely from the most common of places. Secondly, the Earth's environment of lots of nitrogen, water, and carbon may lead to a co-evolution scenario, where life evolves to becomes relatively similar, consisting of DNA, proteins, carbohydrates, etc...
There's also some suggestion that viruses may have evolved independently of the main branch of life.