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Originally Posted by Skybird
Eh - in how far leads the panorama of long times and eons and their visualization via your distance model to your last sentence'S conclusion...?
I listened with interest to your model description - until the last sentence.
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Assuming that evolution is only ruled by what is physically possible in any given instance, stack up the number of possible instances and this is as close to the Shakespeare-typing chimps we get. The chance of no biological evolution happening out of the chemical soup in the very beginning is what is really remote. In this universe anyway :p
EDIT: Just a few speculations that entered my mind now: The Crab Nebula is probably the remnant of a super nova that was observed less than 1000 years ago. 1000 years is next to nothing compared to the time it would have taken to form the solar system. Its current diameter as we see it now, is about 11 light years. The closest star to our is only 4-5 light years away. A super nova not only produces heavy elements, but is really good at spreading them. A super nova happening relatively near the cloud that would eventually form our solar system, or happening within a few thousands or few million light years away from a fully formed system, would have given future life the elements it would need in abundance.
Forming building blocks for amino acids, proteins and so on is well within reach for nature. Building blocks, complex molecules, have been detected floating around in deep space. It is not unlikely that several such building blocks were formed shortly after a super nova went off, and kept forming, and keep forming, as long as the right elements were there.
After Earth's surface was filled with water to have everything from puddles to oceans, I see no reason why these complex molecules wouldn't be present here, kickstarting the chemical evolution that preceded the biological one. So in a way, life did start "out of nothing", if by nothing one mean the inevitable exploding of massive stars, the inevitable spreading of heavy elements and complex molecules and the laws of physics binding elements and molecules together.