I’m with rightplacerighttime. I don’t think we can really say anything with a sample size of 1 to go on, and it’s still 1 however widely we expand the range of conditions in which life exists on Earth and observe the same conditions on other planets/moons (like, say, Europa- current hot favourite in our solar system I believe?). So we wouldn’t conclude there must be life elsewhere on the basis that there is life here, anymore than we’d conclude that no rocks ever have earwigs under them on the basis that we picked up one rock and found no earwig (to hijack someone’s example from earlier).

That’s from a purely nit-picking point of view though. I reckon (and maybe RPRT does too) that it’s actually pretty likely there is life elsewhere in the universe, maybe the galaxy, and even our solar system. Personally I think life will be found in the solar system in my lifetime- microbes on Europa or something. But I don’t think a human will ever meet anything much more intelligent than that.

FFS graham i am trying to argue here and you are not helping 😉
I agree on your precise FWIW but stil think he overstated his case claiming it is irrelevant.

The more planets the more chance…this is undeniable so the statement the number is irrelevant is not accurate.

His earlier use of probabilities was very poor as well.

His central point that we could debate how likely life is to occur has some merit but without some acceptance of his earlier error/overstating I had little interest in moving on.
Stubborn..moi
I dont think it is infinitesimally small though. Even if we accept it may is low say a billion – 1 but that still gives us other life. I assume most think i in a billion is quite low as for infinitesimal I am not sure what 1 in number RPRT means.

I like the way you agree with him that we cant know then say we will find it in your lifetime. Classic STW
We cannot know very much from a sample of one and the rock analogy is poor.
We know a suitable planet teams with a variety of lifeforms that evolve and that life survives a variety of catacylismic events. It would suggest life is robust in the correct conditions. the question would seem how many planets have these conditions. The answer is quite sexy 😉

A few points to add:

Gingerbread is the new Kryptonite.

I find Duggans Carlos Casternedia type of mindset to sits best in my mind.

In true STW fashion we have 5 pages of massdebate and no ones answered the initial post of

what do they look like?

Anyone here been “probed”?

we have Aliens right here in singletrack land…. we are right smack bang in the middle of the Aliens runway here in singletrack land…
theres truth in it you see…
http://naturalplane.blogspot.com/2010/12/alan-godfrey-abduction-yorkshire-uk.html

Junkyard,

RPRT Considering you think the number of planets is irrelevant you are very keen to know my view and yet incredibly unkeen to make any comment on why an increasing number does not alter the odds.

I didn’t say that it didn’t alter the odds. I said that it didn’t matter. lets say for the purposes of illustration that there are a million potentially habitable planets, and then we find 10 more.

Because we don’t know what the chance of life is, having a few more planets available to look at changes the odds of finding life from:

A potentially very small, but unknowable amount in a million.

to:

A potentially very small, but still unknowable amount in a million and 10.

We still have the same level of uncertainty about the answer, because we never knew what the chance of life was in the first place. Ergo, the number of planets doesn’t matter.

you have moved the goalposts [ or explained it better or so I understand if you prefer] but I can see your point.
cant we just guess though 😀