LogFAQs > #949483219

LuciferSage posted...

And this is just one rock of many orbiting a less than average star in a cosmic backwater.

That was Sagan's argument, but not every astronomer agreed with him even then. We literally have no idea whether or not some aspect of our world is so utterly unlikely and rare that it makes life far more likely here than anywhere else. We could be one of the most common dirt-balls in the universe, or there could be something about Earth that is a massive cosmic accident that makes us utterly unique.

We'll never really know for sure until we can actually get out there and start exploring other worlds, comparing ourselves to them, and generally looking for signs of life. Just observing from Earth really isn't sufficient for that.

Even finding worlds that are similar to Earth that can support life doesn't mean much, because being capable of supporting life is not the same thing as capable of forming organic matter from inorganic matter and evolving it to the point of self-sufficiency. Even on Earth, there were probably any number of points where life could easily have been wiped out completely with no real hope of recovery.

Again, our problem is that we're basically looking at a case study of exactly ONE example and trying to generalize universal principles and concepts out of it. Which really isn't a great way to come up with accurate answers.

Basically, we could be anything from one out of a billion billion races in the universe RIGHT NOW, or we could be a massive cosmic accident that shouldn't even exist in the first place, and will be alone from now until the end of time because there will never be anyone else. We have no real way of knowing.

So everything's basically prefence, hope, and blind faith. Extraterrestrial life is basically the religion of the modern age.
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