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Why has life only arisen once on earth?

Is there any evidence of life having arisen more than once on Earth? Why is all life related to a common ancestor, surely if it happened once it could happen more than once? Given that the Earth is the only place we know for certain that life exists is there any evidence for life having arisen independently more than once?

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  • Asked by Sherring
  • on 2010-01-06 09:23:15
  • Member status
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Last edited on: 2010-02-12 05:03:20

Categories: Planet Earth.

Tags: Life, Biology, DNA, Astrobiology.

 

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MikeAdams#367 says:
It is quite possible that life arose multiple times, but only one type survived. There would be no way of testing this except by having a few dozen spare earths to rerun the experiment multiple times. The observation that all of the fundamental processes in living organisms are so similar suggests that all current life had a single common ancestor. The odds of life originating multiple times and have the same chemistry and structures seem very remote. 
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Tags: Life, Biology, DNA, Astrobiology.

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posted on 2010-03-31 15:03:24 | Report abuse


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