TNRTB Archive - Retained for reference information
Many scientists committed to naturalism claim life’s rapid emergence on Earth establishes that life must be common in the universe. However, an Australian physicist, arguing from a naturalist perspective, asserts that life’s rapid appearance on Earth does not prove that life is common in the universe. At least ten complex steps exist between Earth’s first life form and humans, and only 3.8 billion years separates the first life form from humans. Therefore, all the steps, including life’s origin, must take place rapidly on Earth regardless of the natural probabilities involved. Thus, it is unlikely that all these steps have been duplicated elsewhere in the relatively short time period the universe allows.
V. V. Flambaum, “Comment on ‘Does the Rapid Appearance of Life on Earth Suggest that Life Is Common in the Universe?” Astrobiology, 3 (2003), pp. 237-239
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/569495/files/0207229.pdf
Charles H. Lineweaver and Tamara M. Davis, “On the Nonobservability of Recent Biogenesis,” Astrobiology, 3 (2003), pp. 241-243. In their reply Lineweaver and Davis incorrectly assume that the human species can remain on Earth for at least another billion years.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0305/0305122.pdf
RTB articles: audio tape of Fuz’s talk on the origin of life
RTB video: Journey Toward Creation, 2nd edition
RTB book: Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men; The Creator and the Cosmos, 3rd edition
