The article that follows is on a topic that I have wondered about. I would appreciate any feedback that you might be able to provide. Especially errors in concept or calculation. Please send an email to jdj@mcanv.com if you would care to comment.

We left the essay on Getting Improbable Results, wondering about the probability that life on Earth came about accidentally by the random association of just the right elements in just the right proportions under just the right conditions. I used an example of the spontaneous assembly of a ten-piece jigsaw puzzle to illustrate how inefficient chance is at bringing order out of disorder. It remains to be decided if assembling cellular life from the raw materials is in any way comparable to assembling a jigsaw puzzle. I am not sure that the two cases are really similar so I went online to learn something about the nature of simple cellular lifeforms. I have been specifying cellular lifeforms, being under the impression that viruses were included in life. It turns out that there is no solid evidence that there is a pathway from viruses to the cellular life so I will drop the adjective cellular from my description and assume we are talking about the cellular life that makes up all known plants and animals, when speaking of life. There is a decent Wikipedia article on cells that can help explain these basic building blocks of living things. Be prepared to learn some new words when reading this article.

Included in the above wikepedia article is a drawing of a bacterial prokaryote cell. We will use that as an example of a simple one-cell lifeform.

•Capsule - Found in some bacterial cells, this additional outer covering protects the cell when it is engulfed by other organisms, assists in retaining moisture, and helps the cell adhere to surfaces and nutrients.

•Cell Wall - Outer covering of most cells that protects the bacterial cell and gives it shape.

•Cytoplasm - A gel-like substance composed mainly of water that also contains enzymes, salts, cell components, and various organic molecules.

•Cell Membrane or Plasma Membrane - Surrounds the cell's cytoplasm and regulates the flow of substances in and out of the cell.

•Pili - Hair-like structures on the surface of the cell that attach to other bacterial cells. Shorter pili called fimbriae help bacteria attach to surfaces.

•Flagella - Long, whip-like protrusion that aids in cellular locomotion.

•Ribosomes - Cell structures responsible for protein production.

•Plasmids - Gene carrying, circular DNA structures that are not involved in reproduction.

•Nucleiod Region - Area of the cytoplasm that contains the single bacterial DNA molecule.

These single cell lifeforms have sufficient structure to carry out all the activities that define life. There is agreement in general among biologists on what these activities are but there are variations in the way they are listed. Below is one example of such a list of activities.

•Maintaining its boundaries.

•Movement.

•Responding to stimuli.

•Ingestion.

•Metabolism.

•Excretion.

•Reproduction

•Growth

•Exhibiting homeostasis

•Evolving

It is suggested that all plant and animal life evolved from prokaryote cells. That may well be the case but there remain some serious gaps in the story of how exactly it came about. In any event, that is not the question that brought us here. What I wonder is how these things came to exist during the first 10⁹ years or so of Earth's existence. A few possibilities come to mind. Perhaps the prokaryote formed by the chance encounter of all the necessary ingredients. Perhaps the first of these complex single cell creatures evolved from something simpler. Perhaps the universe is arranged in a way, not obvious to us now, that favors the rise of lifeforms from inanimate matter - in spite of the evident tendency of things to proceed naturally from order to disorder. Perhaps, as was the case in assembling the jigsaw puzzle, the application of intelligence accomplishes what chance alone could not do in thousands of our universe's lifetimes.

Let's examine the possibility that I consider the least likely and maybe we can dispose of that quickly. The size of the prokaryote is about 3X10^-18 cubic meters, which equates to roughly 10¹² atoms per cell. Let's assume that 60% of these atoms are hydrogen and oxygen, bound together to form H₂O (water) molecules. There is not a lot of structure to water. It can be stirred about gently in a container without seriously affecting the structure immersed in it. The other 40% of the atoms have to be in specific locations relative to one another to make the whole thing work. That amounts to a 4X10¹¹ piece jigsaw puzzle. If the first prokaryote were to have sprung fully formed from random encouters among atoms, that would have to be considered truly miraculous. I think I will wait for another essay to begin exploring the other perhapses.