system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Could abiogenesis still be happening on Earth?  If so, how would we know?

I have read several theories about how abiogenesis could occur, but there seems to be an implicit assumption that it is something that happened once billions of years ago, and that all life evolved from that starting point.  

It seems to me that if abiogenesis is a natural process, then there is no reason it would have been a one-off event, and could be happening spontaneously even today but probably would not evolve very far since all the ecological niches are already filled.  If that was the case how would we be able to detect abiogenesis happening in the wild?  Has anyone looked?  

**Edit**:

Thanks for the comments so far.  I realise that the chances of new life forms arising from abiogenesis is zero to many decimal places given the competition from existing life.  I was thinking more about opportunities for observing the process in action, even if it did not survive long enough to evolve into a new life form.  If we could do this it would confirm what is now largely hypothesis, and give a much better insight into the probability of life arising on other planets.
gpt
It quite probably did happen.  The problem for any such new simple life form is that it comes into existence in a world teeming with life that has had billions of years of evolution behind it already, and is hopelessly lost when trying to compete for resources.  The only chance it would have would be if by sheer luck it occupied some niche not yet utilized by existing life.  This is rather unlikely, as life on earth seems to have already filled every ecological niche that biochemistry will permit.