I apologise if this has been pointed out earlier as i speed read and skipped over the 13 pages...
The Miller experiment is just one tiny little attempt at building life and it spanned a tiny inconsequential amount of time.
If we consider that there was perhaps 10's of millions of years and 100's millions of places and 1000s' of billions attempts to produce just one single self replicator.
Plus giving 'odds against' is at best a guess divided by a guess...
The mere fact that life exists at all is remarkable, but it really is no miracle.
If you consider that the odds of you being 'you' then the odds are high as well, how many times would your parents have had to try to make you if they had aimed for the exact 'edition' they got.
When we do retrospective 'odds-ing' we are somewaht hide-bound by what we ask or attempt.
If we went to the races and bet on a 20 horse race and tried to back the winner by name then we have a 19-1 odds [it's a perfectly weighted h'cap]
Looking back the eventual winner seems to have done it against the odds... which ever horse past the post first, it's the mere fact that there was a race meant there had to be a winner.
The mere fact there was a planet that COULD sustain life meant that it had to happen.
[This message has been edited by V-Bird, 03-23-2004]