Life on Earth

Life on Earth

This paper provides analysis of an article, titled, “Life on Earth”. This article was published in the September issue of Scientific American, in the year 2009.

In the opinion of the author, it cannot be denied that our universe seems uniquely capable of sustaining life, especially human life. If our universe were even slightly different, it would be a place where complex organisms could not have developed. If the inflation rate of the early cosmos had been altered from what it was, then galaxies would never have formed.

If gravity had not been as strong as it was, stars would never have developed or lasted long enough to warm planets. Minor alterations in the forces in the universe would have made it impossible for hydrogen—necessary for both the formation of water and the constant fueling of the sun—to form. A change in the strong force would have made it impossible for protons to form. Minor changes in the universe would have meant that the forces of gravity and electromagnetism would not have been in the correct ratio for our sun to form (Ricardo, Szostak, 2009).

In the opinion of the authors, if things had been any different in the universe, too little carbon would have been made for organic life to develop. Our universe, with a sun that allowed the existence of a warm planet to sustain human life, with an abundance of water, with sufficient oxygen for living creatures to breathe, with a gravitational force to keep the universe from collapsing too soon, is really an ideal place for life to evolve (Ricardo, Szostak, 2009).

If it were true that an infinite number of universes exists, it becomes far easier to accept that one universe could originate by chance that contained a particular solar system with a planet that had all the necessary elements for intelligent life to develop and evolve. It just so happened that our planet, in our solar system, in our galaxy, in our universe, contained all that was needed to sustain beings who could think and wonder about what was happening to them. In fact, it would be surprising if, in a multiverse or metaverse of infinite possibilities, intelligent life had not evolved.

The epicenter of life on the primitive earth was, in all likelihood, what are now called “hydrothermal vents.” These are cracks in the ocean floor, leading to subterranean areas of molten ...