[Physicist]

Until we have some baseline examples of extraterrestrial life, I'm of the opinion that the accidents that led to intelligent apes are rather uncommon.

Considering how little we've actually explored, if we had compelling evidence of any sort of extraterrestrial life this early in the game, we would be forced to conclude that life is ubiquitous throughout the universe.

The fact that we haven't found anything so far tells me nothing.

[js1138]

I have no problem with life being common, but the scenerios for the evolution of language seem improbable. This is something that will seem obvious, one way or the other, after the aquisition of data.