One of the discoveries of modern science is the sheer improbability of the Universe. It is shaped by six fundamental forces which, had they varied by an infinitesimal amount, the Universe would have expanded or imploded in such a way as to preclude the formation of stars. Unless we assume the existence of a million or trillion other universes (itself a large leap of faith), the fact that there is a universe at all is massively improbable.

So is the existence of life. Among the hundred billion galaxies, each with billions of stars, only one planet known to us, Earth, seems finely tuned for the emergence of life. And by what intermediate stages did non-life become life?

It’s a puzzle so improbable that Francis Crick was forced to argue that life was born somewhere else, Mars perhaps, and came here via meteorite, so making the mystery yet more mysterious.

How did life become sentient? And how did sentience grow to become self-consciousness, that strange gift, known only to Homo sapiens. So many improbabilities, Stephen J. Gould concluded, that if the process of evolution were run again from the beginning it is doubtful whether Homo sapiens would ever have been born.

You don’t have to be religious to have a sense of awe at the sheer improbability of things....

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