Not really. It could be more. We could be the only one.
I was just making a sarcastic remark about how scientists pluck numbers from the air and then try to back them up. Estimates from the "Population Bomb," which was considered fairly accurate science when it was written, come to mind.
I was just making a sarcastic remark about how scientists pluck numbers from the air and then try to back them up.
Well, that number wasn't picked entirely at random, as I recall. It's related to the number of possible values of parameters in certain string theory scenarios, with the idea that each choice of parameters might correspond to a possible universe (the vast majority of which would be unable to support life as we know it, of course). Still, it's highly speculative, which I why I used the expression 'bandied about'.