3rd August 2010, 9:43 AM
"Good conditions" are relative now, but that's only because life has evolved to adapt to so many conditions.
Life evolved from a certain, specific set of consequences. Anything else would have almost certainly been bad for that initial life. As you mentioned, dinosaurs lived in a world we would consider hostile--but that works both ways, and our genetic ancestors were able to adapt to the awful conditions that destroyed the dinosaurs. Now, in our colder, more oxygen-rich environment, the dinosaurs would have a hard time existing, ignoring every other difference. Our world would be 'bad conditions' for them.
Life as we know it could never have begun on Earth in the conditions we have today. It needed the conditions present 4 billion years ago--conditions which would be entirely awful for living things today, but vital for living things at that time.
Life evolved from a certain, specific set of consequences. Anything else would have almost certainly been bad for that initial life. As you mentioned, dinosaurs lived in a world we would consider hostile--but that works both ways, and our genetic ancestors were able to adapt to the awful conditions that destroyed the dinosaurs. Now, in our colder, more oxygen-rich environment, the dinosaurs would have a hard time existing, ignoring every other difference. Our world would be 'bad conditions' for them.
Life as we know it could never have begun on Earth in the conditions we have today. It needed the conditions present 4 billion years ago--conditions which would be entirely awful for living things today, but vital for living things at that time.
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