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errrr... well there is actually scientific studies on the last point about dna mutation, it seems that in the asteroid belt between earth and jupiter there is a region of space which is very fine tuned gravitationally and any asteroids wandering into this area get flung by jupiters gravity towards earth orbit, several scientists have said thats its likely that Jupiter causes several asteroid strikes in our past, possibly much greater amount than we would get without this effect, and that these disasters give evolution a good sturdy push every so often as animals and plants need to adapt fast to survive. Basiclly it would seem that life on earth has been brought to the stage its at by natural selection and evolution, by Earths own chemistry, by the sun obviously, and that the whole process of evolution has been speeded up by our natural disaster accelerator that is the asteroid belt and Jupiter. However i would like to point out that yes Jupiters gravity well does save Earth from extra solar bombardment as objects hurteling in towards us from deep space usually head for the sun or jupiter, and if jupiter wasnt there it would be us, however the asteroid belt is vast, if during asteroid orbits they do stray into this area of jupiters gravity, i would like the statisticians amongst you to consider the rate of objects from our asteroid belt being flung compared with objects from deep space coming into our solar system, the likelyhood is Jupiter saves us but at a lot lower of a rate than which it throws massive boulders at us from our own belt.
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