Of course, the Milky Way, vast as it is, is only one of hundreds of billions of galaxies that are known to be out there...so far.
No doubt that there are many other planets teeming with life out there, some more primitive by Earth standards, others way more advanced. Even the ones that are far more advanced will probably never develop the technologies to make contact with this little outpost called Earth.
I tried to write a short story once. The characters were an entomologist grad student with an interest in interstellar communication, her boy friend in far off Australia who ran the big telescope array, and a bee, the worker supervisor that delegated task in the colonial hive.
The gist was the grad student was so interested in her career and minding the apiary of her mentor she would not succumb to her own biology and go to Australia and true love. Meanwhile in the colony, growth necessitated action. A decision was being made to reproduce the colony and swarm. This action required tremendous communication between tens of thousands of individuals.
The irony was the forlorn grad student was so intent on communications from space she overlooked the active communication in process literally at her fingertips, among the bees on the frames she was removing and studying.
If we can not communicate or understand the communications of the earthbound colonies of bees, there is virtually no hope of understanding extraterrestrials.
>>”No doubt that there are many other planets teeming with life out there, some more primitive by Earth standards, others way more advanced. Even the ones that are far more advanced will probably never develop the technologies to make contact with this little outpost called Earth.”<<
You are wrong (wink..) Aliens actually find “Planet Earth” to be an interesting place for interaction despite our relative obscurity in the universe.
Theme from “Flash Gordon”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNIVpMXHqlk