Stephen E. Jones has noted,
Using information theory, astrophysicist Edward Argyle calculated the probability that a single organism arose on the early Earth by chance. Argyle concluded: “It would seem impossible for the prebiotic Earth to have generated more than about 200 bits of information, an amount that falls short of the 6 million bits in E. coli by a factor of 30,000.”
- Edward Argyle, “Chance and the Origin of Life”, Extraterrestrials – Where Are They?
Cambridge University Press, 199, p. 131.
Photo: Stromatolites, fossils of some of the earliest known life forms, US government, public domain
