I have no trouble believing that earth type, life supporting planets are probably quite common.
But the necessary stability, and low probability events and conditions that lead to the development of a sentient species are probably so rare so as to mean that we're probably the next thing to being alone in this galaxy.
All the more reason to get out there, explore and colonize.
Most definitely.
Our advancements on Earth related to our off-planet exploration have made a case for that already. Whether there are other human-like beings out there should not be our 'reason-number-one' to explore.
Besides... something... created this universe... and any species worth its salt would want to find out the why's... when's and the what for's.
johnny7: That's why it's hard for me to believe that the universe contains thousands of earth-like planets. Life on earth has gone through so many, catastrophic mutations that the odds of intelligent life elsewhere are much slimmer than popularly thought.IOW, catastrophic events lower the odds, and lack of catastrophic events lowers the odds...
coconutt2000: I have no trouble believing that earth type, life supporting planets are probably quite common. But the necessary stability, and low probability events and conditions that lead to the development of a sentient species are probably so rare so as to mean that we're probably the next thing to being alone in this galaxy.