[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

I doubt there is life as we know anywhere else in the universe.

The Copernican principle is false.

[UCANSEE2]

I doubt there is life as we know anywhere else in the universe.

That "as we know" part is a real stickler.

Now.... life .... exists everywhere else in the Universe.

When we look in the sky and see the stars, every single one of them is life. They are the source of life for whatever surrounds them.

Our 'star' is the source of life. It is life.

What 'grows' as a result of that light, that source of life, is another story.

We have yet to find and understand all the forms of life that exist on the Earth.

I would like to see us do that before we have the audacity to think we would recognize 'life' on a planet in a system so far away we can not conceivably get there.

[onedoug]

The Privileged Planet bump!

[backwoods-engineer]

I totally agree. I have posted on these habitable planet threads before, and mentioned Gonzales’ book, and Ward and Brownlee’s “Rare Earth.” The response is usually either crickets, or “you can’t know that.” No, I can’t, but I can postulate a hypothesis based on observation so far: no Earthlike worlds will be found in the galaxy except our own.