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posted by janrinok on Wednesday October 05 2022, @05:35AM   Printer-friendly
from the out-with-the-old-priors-and-in-with-the-new dept.

New Theory Concludes That the Origin of Life on Earth-Like Planets Is Likely:

Does the existence of life on Earth tell us anything about the probability of abiogenesis — the origin of life from inorganic substances — arising elsewhere? That's a question that has confounded scientists, and anyone else inclined to ponder it, for some time.

A widely accepted argument from Australian-born astrophysicist Brandon Carter argues that the selection effect of our own existence puts constraints on our observation. Since we had to find ourselves on a planet where abiogenesis occurred, then nothing can be inferred about the probability of life elsewhere based on this knowledge alone.

[...] However, a new paper by Daniel Whitmire, a retired astrophysicist who currently teaches mathematics at the U of A, is arguing that Carter used faulty logic. Though Carter's theory has become widely accepted, Whitmire argues that it suffers from what's known as "The Old Evidence Problem" in Bayesian Confirmation Theory, which is used to update a theory or hypothesis in light of new evidence.

[...] As he explains, "One could argue, like Carter, that I exist regardless of whether my conception was hard or easy, and so nothing can be inferred about whether my conception was hard or easy from my existence alone."

In this analogy, "hard" means contraception was used. "Easy" means no contraception was used. In each case, Whitmire assigns values to these propositions.

Whitmire continues, "However, my existence is old evidence and must be treated as such. When this is done the conclusion is that it is much more probable that my conception was easy. In the abiogenesis case of interest, it's the same thing. The existence of life on Earth is old evidence and just like in the conception analogy the probability that abiogenesis is easy is much more probable."

Journal Reference:
Daniel P. Whitmire. Abiogenesis: the Carter argument reconsidered [open], Int J Astrobio, 2022. DOI: 10.1017/S1473550422000350


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  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday October 05 2022, @06:53PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Wednesday October 05 2022, @06:53PM (#1275072) Homepage Journal

    We like to think we're special. I think that blinds us. Centuries ago, there was dogma that the Earth was the Center of the Universe, backed by threats to burn at the stake anyone who dared disagree.

    That statement argues against itself. If we though we were special, nobody would have been burned at the stake because even Galileo wouldn't have believed his own eyes.

    One of the most interesting findings by the pioneers of CS is how shockingly little it takes to make a Turing complete machine.

    That's offtopic, we're talking about life, not technology. If you know anything at all about how computers actually work you know they can't think. Before the late 1800s people would have been shocked to learn how easy it is to turn electricity into light. There's no difference between these two apples, your apple doesn't match your orange.

    I would further guess that microbial life is far and away the most common, and that the biggest barriers to intelligent life is not life, but intelligence.

    Now, that's not only 2+2 logical, but the single example of life we have here backs it up.

    . Life that evolves on a planet orbiting the wrong kind of star is screwed.

    Life will never start in a stellar system like that.

    The moon is a most interesting variable. If that is necessary, to stabilize a planet and thereby give life a steadier platform on which to live, then that would make life a lot rarer.

    Rather than stabilizing the planet, it makes it wobble and its tides stir the ocean waters. That is likely necessary for life to begin anywhere, but then, it could start in a place like Europa, a large satellite with planetary tides. In fact, I think if we find no life there, we're unlikely to find it anywhere.

    But the fact is, we're clueless. Doesn't stop me and others from writing fiction about it, look at how closely this story [baen.com] written in 1946, the year the first computer was patented, describes the internet (except his internet was censored like everything was in 1946 and a manufacturing defect removed the censorship and caused the problems).

    I'll bet he didn't believe for a minute how his story would loosely mirror his future, our presebt.

    --
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