There's talk of cells with lifetimes (cellular division interval) of 100,000 years. Perhaps waiting out an ice age to reproduce again, and so on.
But if life is on the order of billions of years old, that organism's ancestry goes back on the order of 10,000's of generations.
Is that long enough to have evolved? How many generations are reasonable to expect complex biochemistry to emerge?
mooreds•3h ago
Based on Bill Gate's recommendation[0], I read the Vital Question a few years ago.
It tries to answer the important question of how life evolves from chemistry. I remember him spending a long time on the chemistry and location questions, but not on the time it took. Probably hard to do from the fossil record.
JoeAltmaier•5h ago
Is that long enough to have evolved? How many generations are reasonable to expect complex biochemistry to emerge?
mooreds•3h ago
It tries to answer the important question of how life evolves from chemistry. I remember him spending a long time on the chemistry and location questions, but not on the time it took. Probably hard to do from the fossil record.
0: https://www.gatesnotes.com/the-vital-question