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Cited by 138Origins and Evolution of LifeSpace Science and Extraterrestrial LifeEarth Systems and Cosmic Evolution

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 35 of the 37 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Bayesian analysis of the astrobiological implications of life’s early emergence on Earth

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Spiegel, David S., Turner, Edwin L.·2012·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI 10.1073/pnas.1111694108PMC PMC3258618
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Abstract

Life arose on Earth sometime in the first few hundred million years after the young planet had cooled to the point that it could support water-based organisms on its surface. The early emergence of life on Earth has been taken as evidence that the probability of abiogenesis is high, if starting from young Earth-like conditions. We revisit this argument quantitatively in a Bayesian statistical framework. By constructing a simple model of the probability of abiogenesis, we calculate a Bayesian estimate of its posterior probability, given the data that life emerged fairly early in Earth’s history and that, billions of years later, curious creatures noted this fact and considered its implications. We find that, given only this very limited empirical information, the choice of Bayesian prior for the abiogenesis probability parameter has a dominant influence on the computed posterior probability. Although terrestrial life's early emergence provides evidence that life might be abundant in the universe if early-Earth-like conditions are common, the evidence is inconclusive and indeed is consistent with an arbitrarily low intrinsic probability of abiogenesis for plausible uninformative priors. Finding a single case of life arising independently of our lineage (on Earth, elsewhere in the solar system, or on an extrasolar planet) would provide much stronger evidence that abiogenesis is not extremely rare in the universe.

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  1. D Darling Life Everywhere (Basic Books, 2001).
  2. H Jeffreys Theory of Probability (Oxford Univ Press, Oxford, 1961).

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Metadata

Authors
Spiegel, D. S., & Turner, E. L.
Affiliations
  • Princeton University (US)
  • Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (JP)
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Published
2011-12-22
Volume
109
Issue
2
Pages
395-400
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.1111694108
PMC
PMC3258618
OpenAlex
W1993168013
Cited by
132
References
37
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 2
FWCI
1.87
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution
Keywords
origin of life, prior distributions, posterior probability, astrobiology, early Earth conditions
MeSH terms
Origin of Life, Bayes Theorem, Computer Simulation, Models, Theoretical, Earth, Planet, Exobiology

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