Does the Rapid Appearance of Life on Earth Suggest that Life Is Common in the Universe?
Open accessAbstract
It is sometimes assumed that the rapidity of biogenesis on Earth suggests that life is common in the Universe. Here we critically examine the assumptions inherent in this if-life-evolved-rapidly-life-must-be-common argument. We use the observational constraints on the rapidity of biogenesis on Earth to infer the probability of biogenesis on terrestrial planets with the same unknown probability of biogenesis as the Earth. We find that on such planets, older than approximately 1 Gyr, the probability of biogenesis is > 13% at the 95% confidence level. This quantifies an important term in the Drake Equation but does not necessarily mean that life is common in the Universe.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
An arbitrarily low abiogenesis rate cannot be robustly excluded because the chance probability tab/t⊕ ~ 0.1 is not negligible assuming a constant abiogenesis rate.
“but an arbitrarily low rate cannot be robustly excluded25–27 because the chance probability tab∕t⊕ ~ 0.1 is not negligible assuming a constant abiogenesis rate, where tab is the time of abiogenesis elapsed from the birth of Earth28, and t⊕ the present age of Earth.”
From Emergence of life in an inflationary universe (2020) · cites this paper as [25]
Cites
Habitable Zones around Main Sequence Stars
Kasting, J. F., Whitmire, D. P., & Reynolds, R. T. (1993) · Icarus · doi:10.1006/icar.1993.1010 · Cited by 2,501 · see citing works
Origin of the Moon in a giant impact near the end of the Earth's formation
Canup, R. M., & Asphaug, E. (2001) · Nature · doi:10.1038/35089010 · Cited by 1,094 · see citing works
Annihilation of ecosystems by large asteroid impacts on the early Earth
Sleep, N. H., Zahnle, K. J., Kasting, J. F., & Morowitz, H. J. (1989) · Nature · doi:10.1038/342139a0 · Cited by 574 · see citing works
The anthropic principle and its implications for biological evolution
Carter, B. (1983) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences · doi:10.1098/rsta.1983.0096 · Cited by 375 · cited 2× · see citing works
“Carter (1983) has pointed out that the time scale for the evolution of intelligence on the Earth ( , 5 Gyr) is comparable to the main sequence lifetime of the Sun ( , 10 Gyr).”
Influential
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Bayesian analysis of the astrobiological implications of life’s early emergence on Earth
Spiegel, D. S., & Turner, E. L. (2012) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1111694108 · Cited by 132 · see citing works
Origins of life: a problem for physics, a key issues review
Walker, S. I. (2017) · Reports on Progress in Physics · doi:10.1088/1361-6633/aa7804 · Cited by 94 · see citing works
Harrison, T. M. (2020) · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-46687-9 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Emergence of life in an inflationary universe
Totani, T. (2020) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-020-58060-0 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lineweaver, C. H., & Davis, T. M.
- Affiliations
- UNSW Sydney (AU)
- Macquarie University (AU)
- Venue
- Astrobiology
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2002-08
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 293-304
- ISSN
- 1531-1074 (ISSN-L)
- 1557-8070
- OpenAlex
- W2111430587
- Cited by
- 123
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 2.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- Astrobiology (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CERN Document Server (European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution
- Keywords
- biogenesis, origin of life, Drake equation, terrestrial planets, habitability, astrobiology
- MeSH terms
- Likelihood Functions, Earth, Planet
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
