Suppose, for example, that in addition to the systematic effects of natural selection it required an enormous amount of lucky coincidence to produce intelligent life—enough so that intelligent life evolves on only one planet out of every 1030 planets on which simple replicators arise. In that case, when we run our genetic algorithms to try to replicate what natural evolution did, we might find that we must run some 1030 simulations before we find one where all the elements come together in just the right way. This seems fully consistent with our observation that life did evolve here on Earth.
