With a hat tip to Lynn Margulis, a biologist who was not really a Darwinian:
The more we look through a Gaian lens, the more we see that nearly every aspect of our planet has been biologically distorted beyond recognition. Earth’s rocks contain more than 4,000 different minerals (the crystalline molecules that make up rocks). This is a much more varied smorgasbord of mineral types than we have seen on any other world. Geochemists studying the mineral history of Earth have concluded that by far the majority of these would not exist without the presence of life on our planet. So, on Earth’s life altered surface, the very rocks themselves are biological byproducts. A big leap in this mineral diversity occurred after life oxygenated Earth’s atmosphere, leading to a plethora of new oxidized minerals that sprinkled colorful rocks throughout Earth’s sediments. Observed on a distant planet, such vast and varied mineral diversity could be a sign of a living world, so this is a potential biosignature (or Gaiasignature) we can add to the more commonly cited Lovelock criterion of searching for atmospheric gases that have been knocked out of equilibrium by life. In fact, minerals and life seem to have fed off each other going all the way back to the beginning. Evidence has increased that minerals were vital catalysts and physical substrates for the origin of life on Earth. Is it really a huge leap, then, to regard the mineral surface of Earth as part of a global living system, part of the body of Gaia?
David Grinspoon, “Why Most Planets Will Either Be Lush or Dead” at Nautilus
Grinspoon argues that life helping shape Earth means that most planets will either be lush or dead.
Maybe. David, find us one that isn’t dead and we promise to get back to you soon.
Note: Lynn Margulis: “(born March 5, 1938, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.—died November 22, 2011, Amherst, Massachusetts), American biologist whose serial endosymbiotic theory of eukaryotic cell development revolutionized the modern concept of how life arose on Earth.” –Britannica
See also: What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter? (fine-tuning)
Follow UD News at Twitter!
The Earth is far more unique in this universe than the author(s) realize(s).
And that is just the probability of getting a planet that can support intelligent life in this universe,,, that does not even take into account the probability against ‘simple’ life randomly appearing on that life supporting planet, or against advanced life forms randomly evolving from that ‘simple’ life on that life supporting planet,,
As William Lane Craig quipped about Barrow and Tipler’s work, ” if evolution did occur, it literally would have been a miracle and evidence for the existence of God.”
Dr. Ross points out that the extremely long amount of time it took to prepare a suitable place for technologically advanced humans to exist in this universe, for the relatively short period of time that we can exist on this planet, is actually a point of evidence that argues strongly for Theism:
The fact of the matter is that the history of earth, and life on earth, gives every indication of “God’s Miraculous Preparation for Humans.”
Moreover on top of all that, there are anomalies in the CMBR, (Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation), which ‘strangely’ line up with the earth and solar system. Here is an excellent clip from the documentary “The Principle” that explains, in an easy to understand manner, how these ‘anomalies’ were found, via ‘averaging out’, in the tiny temperature variations in the CMBR data.
In other words, the “tiny temperature variations” in the CMBR, reveal teleology, (i.e. a goal directed purpose, a plan), that specifically included the earth from the start. ,,, The earth, from what our best science can now tell us, is not some random cosmic fluke as atheists have been presupposing all along.