Why is there so much life?

There must be something missing here because the mass of goo remains the same. How much weight of life do we have on earth at the moment? Maybe a billion tons? That didn't all come from Goo!
 
Immortalxazn said:
20 pounds is quite possible for the first signs of life form. They were after all bacteria and microorganisms that are invisible to the naked eye.
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Small individual size doesn't mean that their total biomass is small.

SJ Gould
Not only does the Earth contain more bacterial organisms than all others combined (scarcely surprising, given their minimal size and mass); not only do bacteria live in more places and work in a greater variety of metabolic ways; not only did bacteria alone constitute the first half of life's history, with no slackening in diversity thereafter; but also, and most surprisingly, total bacterial biomass (even at such minimal weight per cell) may exceed all the rest of life combined, even forest trees, once we include the subterranean populations as well. Need any more be said in making a case for the modal bacter as life's constant center of maximal influence and importance?
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alexb123 said:
Early life came about due to a unique mix of factors, I'm fine with that aspect. However, how did so much life develop?

If we think of the early interactions that created life I am sure it did not create it on a mass scale. So how did the early life sustain itself?

Lets put some very basic maths in to the equation.

Early life weight = 20 Pounds
Current life weight = 100000 Tons

How did this happen?
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Umm....living things reproduce. So even though there probably weren't a lot of living thing at first, they kept reproducing until there were a lot of living things. What's the problem?
 
Nasor the problem is that life feeds from other life, name me one creature that does not feed from other life? So life must have created more life from non-living matter, what is this matter?
 
The dirt and air of today is not like it use to be. Back in the good old days it was lifeless.
 
Life (simple organisms) began wherever there was moisture and heat and it probably happened pretty rapidly on a global scale, it's pretty stupid trying to put a number on it, but even if we're talking of bacteria, on a global scale we're probably looking at trillions of tons.
 
tablariddim said:
Life (simple organisms) began wherever there was moisture and heat and it probably happened pretty rapidly on a global scale, it's pretty stupid trying to put a number on it, but even if we're talking of bacteria, on a global scale we're probably looking at trillions of tons.
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How could it be Global? Conditions on earth vary greatly from one place to another.
 
alexb123 said:
Early life came about due to a unique mix of factors, I'm fine with that aspect. However, how did so much life develop?

If we think of the early interactions that created life I am sure it did not create it on a mass scale. So how did the early life sustain itself?

Lets put some very basic maths in to the equation.

Early life weight = 20 Pounds
Current life weight = 100000 Tons

How did this happen?
Click to expand...

Over many many many years.
 
I am sure you are correct that it spread but how did it spread? What was converted from non-living to living to make it possible for it to grow so much? Life must have started to make life out of non-living things, what are these things?
 
spuriousmonkey said:
the earth was filled with organic soup, mud, goo which just needed to be gobbled up.
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I guess that is what must have happened. But where is the science? Why was the goo so good that it progressed to allow such an abundance of life?

Simple goo + (eating) simple goo = complex goo. This doesn't add up to me.
 
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