Is abiogenesis possible today?

Question

Life on earth started about 3.5 billion years ago. I would assume abiogenesis happened because the conditions were right. Would the current earth conditions allow for new abiogenesis and completely independent (in terms of phylogeny, not ecology)?

Answer 1

I will answer this in a few different lenses, both in terms of theoretical possibility and practicality.

The Problem of Earth Conditions

As I'm sure you know, the Earth has changed dramatically in the 3.5+ billions years since life first evolved. When the first inklings of life formed, the surface of the earth was scorching hot, with massive electrical storms and various gases which we would certainly not find hospitable. There were trace amounts of oxygen, which means we likely wouldn't have time to reflect on how inhospitable everything else is.

However, these were the perfect conditions for life to evolve, in our modern recreations of these conditions amino acids and other building blocks of life form quite easily in a short amount of time.

Our modern earth, however, is far removed from these conditions. Is it possible that some new form of life could evolve in the current state of the planet? Perhaps. Could it succeed? I'll address that next.

The Practical Issue of a New Life Form

While we often like to think of life forms that are more or less advanced, the fact is that all species on the planet have been evolving for the same period of time; since the inception of life. Even a species like the horseshoe crab, which has maintained basically the same morphology for 400 million years, is evolving in it's own, gentle, way.

Now, you take all these organisms, who have filled nearly every imaginable niche and evolved to compete against other, equally matched organisms, and you have the functional equivalent of heavy-weight boxers trapped in an eternal competition for survival. Any new form of life would inevitably be outmatched by even the "simplest" of single celled organisms. Even if we ignore the conditions of the Earth not being conducive to the creation of new life, we cannot ignore the insurmountable pressure new life would face from that already here.

Answer 2

when talking about any evolutionary or proto-evolutionary period. What needs to be taken into account is conditions that causes a something to arise and evolutionary niches. A niche in biological terms refer to a role or functions that an organism play in its ecosystem. So in this way we can understand that the earths conditions wouldn't produce abiogensis current. Simply because the molecules that are needed for it able to be produce do to the environment we have now and also because if they where able to for some reason the life that already exist would consume them and not allow the chance to evolve.