system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is it possible that there were multiple independent origins of life on Earth?

I was listening to a podcast on astrobiology and the theoretical search for life on other planets, and it got me thinking: could there have been multiple “first” organisms on Earth when life first formed as microbes billions of years ago? 

If so, how would we know? 

Is it possible that any of these independent evolutionary trees survived for very long, or would they have been out-competed by the organisms that are our earliest ancestors?
gpt
Yes, its possible that life has formed multiple times, however all life on earth descends from one event/one common ancestor, not multiple. Once life formed any other events that lead to self replicating would be destroyed/outcompeted by existing life. It’s also possible self replicating/life origin events happened before the one that lead to us but died out.

However there is no evidence of any other events leading to the origins of life, nor would we expect any since any evidence would have been destroyed almost as soon as it formed.