Quote:
Originally Posted by iquestor
I think it's safe to say that, based on sheer numbers of stars available, the formation of life would be statistically unlikely to occur just once.
But we just cannot say more than that with certainty. We just dont know if there is life out there, nor can we make inferences on how we as humans are emotionally or morally comparable to such life. If there are other civilizations, we may be the oldest, or the youngest.
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As you say, it is probably a fairly safe assumption, but with only one known sample planet with life (i.e. Earth!) - and as you also state - we just don't know.
Should we find life on Europa, or possibly the latest candidate of Enceladus, then perhaps (but only just perhaps) we can begin to work some math to determine the likely hood of finding further life in our galaxy, or even further afield, should we ever develop the means to explore that far. Even this will still be speculation based on a 'best guess'.