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You mean to say millions rather then billions? [1]

Either way, thanks for the positive message.

[1] http://sci.waikato.ac.nz/evolution/AnimalEvolution.shtml

It's pretty crazy that life started on Earth about ~4 billion years ago, almost as soon as there was liquid water, but the Cambrian Explosion didn't occur until about ~0.5 billion years ago. Really makes you wonder what the heck was going on for three and a half billion years. Also, maybe it's an indication that life is easy to come by and exists in every little nook and cranny in the Universe, but complex multi-cellular life is a larger hurdle.

Yup, this is a very likely possibility, that even if life emerges the other conditioms may not be present to make it evolve to the next stage. Even the fact that humans have made it ahead of other species is not given at all. Other apes were far less lucky.

Depends what he called "creatures" I guess:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary...

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