[dfwgator]

Exactly. Look at all the things that had to be just in the right place for life to exist on this planet...the chances of this occurring randomly, are infinitesimal, at best.

[staytrue]

I think there is probably life around. It may even be intelligent like a salmader, or even a dog. But technology seems really hard, even on earth. And it seems life is really hard even on relatively friendly mars.

So I say 40 billion to one is not good enough odds for me.

[sauron]

The book Rare Earth explains it.

Life may indeed be plentiful, in a sense, though the process that allows it to happen requires thousands of separate events to coincide.

The Drake Equation is replaced by the newer Rare Earth Equation.

Yet, even so, even though life may be not common, but plentiful, intelligent life may be almost unheard of.

It's a horror book, once you read it and understand the implications.

But it does explain the Fermi Paradox.

[Cementjungle]

If life here happened by chance using available materials, then it had to happen billions of other places too. Also, nothing says that a planet needs to be similar to Earth... unless we're only looking for other life similar to ours.

Bottom line... If we are the result of random mixing of stuff, then the whole universe would be loaded with all sorts of living stuff...and we would see some evidence of it.