[OldNavyVet]

This is a phenomenal discovery in the course of human history,

It's also a significant discovery supporting Darwin's theory of evolution.

[MHGinTN]

Only to someone desperate to find such a ‘support’.

[ShadowAce]

No, it’s not. It doesn’t support nor disprove anything regarding evolution.

[MrB]

Cart before the horse...
Assume that life on earth is an accident,
and therefore it MUST have happened elsewhere as well.

Just curious, though, how exactly, in your mind, does “finding a planet in the habitable zone around a distant star” support the idea that all life on THIS planet has a single common ancestry?

[RobbyS]

How so? Darwin's theory assumes pre-existing life and the morphing of simple forms into more complex forms in a gradual process. Spontaneous generation is a theory that long preceded Darwin, but so far the maxim, "life comes from life." has yet to be disproved. The Roddenberry notion of a galaxy swarming with humanoid life forms remains a fantasy as does the idea of a Starship Enterprise. I am reminded of a 17th century play by Cyrano about the balloonist who sail to the moon. That was before the scientist Pascal went beyond the speculators, carried a barometer up the mountain and showed that as he ascended, the air became attenuated as the pressure dropped.