Early evolution proof of alien life?

This thread isn't for theists to come in and go "AHHHH EVOLUTION IS FAKE!" and mods plz delete any posts that sound like this I don't want this thread going off topic.

(time in millions of years)
4600 Formation of the approximately homogeneous solid Earth by planetesimal accretion

4300 Melting of the Earth due to radioactive and gravitational heating which leads to its differentiated interior structure as well as outgassing of molecules such as water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide

4300 Atmospheric water is photodissociated by ultraviolet light to give oxygen atoms which are incorporated into an ozone layer and hydrogen molecules which escape into space

4000 Bombardment of the Earth by planetesimals stops

3800 The Earth's crust solidifies--formation of the oldest rocks found on Earth

3800 Condensation of atmospheric water into oceans

3500-2800 Prokaryotic cell organisms develop

3500-2800 Beginning of photosynthesis by blue-green algae which releases oxygen molecules into the atmosphere and steadily works to strengthen the ozone layer and change the Earth's chemically reducing atmosphere into a chemically oxidizing one

2400 Rise in the concentration of oxygen molecules stops the deposition of uraninites (since they are soluble when combined with oxygen) and starts the deposition of banded iron formations

2000 The Oklo natural fission reactor in Gabon goes into operation

1600 The last reserves of reduced iron are used up by the increasing
atmospheric oxygen--last banded iron formations

1500 Eukaryotic cell organisms develop

1500-600 Rise of multicellular organisms

Thanks to Steven Hawking who pointed this out. Now as you can see single cellular life appeared very quickly (relatively) after the Earth cooled. A mere 1.1 billion years (give or take). This process could have taken tens of billions of years, but it didn't. So from that, we can figure. Life could exist of other planets, and not just single cellular life, multicellular life. Maybe not ET or greys or any of that Area 51 stuff. But life nonetheless. I'll leave this thread open to thoughts

[edit on 10-2-2008 by Damien_Hell]

[edit on 10-2-2008 by Damien_Hell]

Oh, i was confused, by the name of the topic.

I thought it was about single cell organisms developing so quickly, that you believe it needed alien intervention. Glad to see, that i was wrong.


If 1.1billion years passed, between the earths surface cooling down and the formation of first life, that doesn't necessarily mean, the conditions were suitable this whole time.

It might be even more impressive, if we knew, how long it took from suitable conditions to formation of life. Could have been less, than 1.1billion years... Then, there's the question, of what coincidental factors were required to actually form the first single cell organisms.


But anyway, even if we know, this time was very short, this isn't proof of alien life.

What we can say, is that due to the enormous size of the universe, the likelyhood of life existing elswhere is actually very, very high.



I was thinking about something else recently.. And it is a bit related.

People always think aliens are more advanced, than us, since they have existed for longer. But no matter how big the universe is, there must have been one planet, where life has developed first.

Theoretically, Earth could have been this first planet to develope life. Even if the probability is low, the possibility exists.

The fact, that people like to believe in aliens far more advanced, than us, reminds me of something else... First people believed in God, that created us, now they believe in advanced aliens, that created us.

Sometimes it is hard to understand our own origin, so people turn to such beliefs. But it poses the same problem as with god. If aliens created us, who created them?

Somewhere, somehow, life had to start first. We don't know where it was. Theoretically it could have been here.


But think about this:

Let's say, life developed first on planet Y, and evolved into intelligent life forms.

I'm pretty sure, they were asking themselves the same questions: Where did we come from? Is there life on other planets? There must be, because the universe is so big.

But at least in their case, they would have been wrong.

yah I love that idea, aliens took a crap on earth and we evolved from the bacteria. I don't think we're the first life, the universe is 20 billion years old, something may have evolved between then and 3.5 billion years ago

Originally posted by Damien_Hell
yah I love that idea, aliens took a crap on earth and we evolved from the bacteria. I don't think we're the first life, the universe is 20 billion years old, something may have evolved between then and 3.5 billion years ago

after studying the cosmic background radiation
scientists think it's more like 13.7 billion

but life did seem to appear very quickly (if the numbers are right)
I bet when we finally get to some of the stars out there
we will find life in a lot of unexpected places

i dont believe we just evolved. i seriously believe we are from another "place" in the galaxy. I just dont believe in the crazy evolution theories some people put out. i believe in evolution yes, but there is no way in hell human life evolved from amoebas and things like that just out of the blue.

Eh i remember reading that scientists have pushed back the date of earliest to 4 billion years ago.

Originally posted by loki42
but life did seem to appear very quickly (if the numbers are right)

Compared to what? We are talking about the development of life here, and since we have absolutely nothing to compare it to, how can you make the assumption that it was quick? Hell, it might have been god darned slow for all we know of.

Originally posted by Swatman
i dont believe we just evolved. i seriously believe we are from another "place" in the galaxy. I just dont believe in the crazy evolution theories some people put out. i believe in evolution yes, but there is no way in hell human life evolved from amoebas and things like that just out of the blue.

So, we came from another place in the galaxy, and there we also had to evolve, so no matter how you look at it (If you are an atheist at least), you do need to have evolution.