What If Life On Earth Wasn't Meant To Happen? | Unveiled

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What If Life On Earth Wasn’t Meant To Happen? </h4>

How can something come from nothing? The universe formed into something out of nothing with the big bang. All of the matter there is dates back to that one pivotal moment of before and after. Similarly, though, the matter (on Earth, at least) was initially inanimate… until, at one point it became alive. So, how and why did that unfold? And what if, actually, it wasn’t supposed to?

This is Unveiled and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; what if life on Earth wasn’t meant to happen?

The origin of life is one of the enduring mysteries in science. We know a lot about how it evolved over time, but not so much about how it got here in the first place. The earliest fossil evidence of life that we have is around 3.5 billion years old. Our planet, in general, is 4.5 billion years old, however… and deciding exactly what took place during that first billion years or so is no mean feat.

One of the most widely-supported theories as to how life formed is that it did so in (and around) the extreme environments of underwater thermal vents. Volcanic activity and cratering on our planet may have at one time created volatile conditions that allowed chemical compounds to form together for the first time into a living organism. We then refer to this moment of supreme coalescence as abiogenesis. Alternatively, it’s been suggested that an ancient collision between Earth and another massive object might have also sparked life - perhaps creating layers of hydrogen that simple life was able to form beneath. Failing that, there’s the increasingly popular idea that life didn’t begin on Earth after all. Instead, it was brought here via comets and meteorites in what’s known as the theory of Panspermia. 

While abiogenesis in underwater thermal vents stands out as the most accepted model, the truth is that still no one knows for sure. What we are pretty sure of, though, is that life (once it is here) needs water, or something similar. We drink it to survive, but water is more than just something to quench thirst. It acts as a solvent within life that can kickstart key chemical reactions. It also regulates body temperature, pressure, light, energy; you name it, water has a hand in making sure it all runs smoothly. And yet, even with water, is life a given? Possibly not, at all.

The famous Drake Equation is a formula developed to estimate the likelihood of alien life. It’s built around a number of variables, one of which relates to the fraction of planets capable of developing life that actually do. This is essentially unknown as, again, scientists aren’t sure about the ways that life can emerge. But if we look at everything that had to go right for life on Earth even after it did form, then it developing elsewhere is arguably quite unlikely. There were (and are) a vast number of conditions that have to be just right to enable life, so much so that it can feel as though they’re somehow deliberate - what scientists refer to as finely tuned.  Examples include most of the most fundamental principles in physics; gravity, the strong nuclear force, the speed of light. But also, on Earth specifically, there’s the presence of plate tectonics, the abundance of water, a large enough moon, there’s the fact that our planet is just the right distance away from the sun. If any of these circumstances were different, then living beings may not have formed at all. 

Which takes us back to the question at the top of today’s video. Because, given the emergence of life, the Drake equation and the so-called fine tuning problem… is it one or the other? Was the universe made for life, or did life just get extraordinarily lucky?

Our quest for an answer is severely prohibited by our meager sample size of life; a sample of one, us. However, we can still ask, looking at the universe as a whole; how many areas of it could life as we know it have a chance of surviving in? With humans as our only example, Earth is the only known place we can actually inhabit. The rest of the universe will pretty much kill us straight away. 

Our planet has created a bubble of gasses to protect us from the harmful conditions of space. But Earth itself accounts for an extremely, indescribably small portion of the wider cosmos. Even within just the solar system, Earth and every other planet accounts for only 0.135% of the total mass. On a universal scale, Earth is smaller than a speck. It’s a fraction of a fragment of a teeny-tiny dot on the landscape. And, what’s more, while life does work here… even on Earth we struggle to survive. Earthquakes, ice ages, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, fires, asteroid strikes… any number of things can destroy life at any second. On the one hand, life is strong; it has had to endure at least five mass extinction events in history, with each one claiming anywhere from 70 to more than 90% of all the beings on the planet at that time. But, on the other hand, life is extremely fragile, even in this place that’s seemingly built to house it.

Specifically, we humans were only possible thanks to an extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. Without that there’d have been no rise of the mammals and no human lineage. If life really has some greater purpose, then… or was meant to come alive, then why would the vast majority of where we’ve come alive in be uninhabitable? Why has life had to struggle basically nonstop for billions of years, and all just to barely make it this far? One possible answer is; it’s probably because it wasn’t meant to. 

We’re part way through the twenty-first century, and we’ve officially charted thousands of exoplanets, with thousands more known but not confirmed. We’ve staged (and are still staging) hundreds of experiments and projects designed to find alien life. We’ve beamed out messages of our own and incessantly watched the skies for any kind of incoming signal. But, nothing. On the one hand, this is the Fermi Paradox in full flow. On the other, it’s stark proof that life is, at the very least, rare. Really, extremely rare. The universe has existed for more than 13 billion years; seemingly time enough for life to evolve and to truly make its presence felt, but it hasn’t. So, if we’re all there is, or if we’re indicative of the level to which any life form can reach, then could it be that we’re not actually special or needed at all? That we’re more like a blot on the page, rather than a pattern that needs to be repeated. From some perspectives, the universe certainly appears keen to forget us. Due to universal expansion, many corners of space are moving away from us at speeds faster than the speed of light. Meaning that even if we invented technology to travel at the speed of light, the massive majority of all the galaxies in the universe would still be forever out of reach. We might conclude, then, that the universe either made itself incredibly challenging to explore, or it didn’t intend for life to try to explore it in the first place. 

Back down on Earth, and evolution is dependent upon random mutations occurring in a population, but it doesn’t have a grand plan or end goal in sight. Sometimes random changes benefit an organism and they can survive; sometimes they don’t, and they die off. But could it be that life formed that way in the first place - not for any reason other than a random mutation or change. Could it be that life was an accident… even if, given the infinite nature of the universe, it really was an accident waiting to happen.

If we accept the opposite, that life was meant to happen, then it arguably requires believing in some sort of greater power. This wouldn’t necessarily mean God, but if we were meant to be here, then who meant for it to happen? Many suggest that humankind adopted religion for this very reason; to feel like we have a purpose on the planet and that we aren’t just a random (maybe even misplaced) step in the grand scheme of the universe. More broadly, though, there is a difference between the potential that we weren’t meant to happen… and the reality of not having a purpose. However we got here, we are here. And life itself has given us purpose. Even if we’re the only life in the universe, for example - not statistically likely, but also not impossible - then we’re also the only part of the universe that’s capable of asking these kinds of questions.

That’s either pretty cool, or pretty terrifying. Because that’s why life on Earth perhaps wasn’t meant to happen.