Statistically...to shape this in the right form...out of billions and billions of stars/planets out there....we already know of one planet that can support life. Statistically, then it becomes an awful hard argument to stand up...saying that one is the final number and cannot exceed one...out of those billions.
I think the public is simply lying to themselves...in believing that no other “living” planet or species will be found. The inability to cope with this huge potential change is what drives us to “hope” that nothing ever changes our sole perception of life.
In my opinion, Pepsionice (I love Pepsi on Ice, by the way... with peanuts... LOL!) I would put it more in terms of “religious dogma”.
Not to pick on anyone, and indeed I’m not, since I take the “Christian Side” EVERY time - and will fight on the moral side of things every time — but I won’t stand for the final word coming out of the Bible that “Man” is the only life, and created in God’s image.
Why? Because how do WE KNOW? We don’t. It doesn’t say anywhere in the Bible that God created other universes, galaxies or star systems supporting life. It talks about OUR life, on our planet in terms we could understand — the Book having been written by MAN.
Thus, without in any way denigrating the Bible or religious beliefs it’s not difficult for logic to tell us life indeed STATISTICALLY exists elsewhere.
There is a distinct bias to try to force one or the other views of either “Creationism” or “Darwinism”.
I don’t think either of the views is entirely accurate. I personally think that “IF” God created life, He did so on a much more vast canvas than we can observe, and left “natural selection” in charge after He wandered off to do other things.
That’s me. I’m a “scientist at heart”, but after you observe so much of the galaxy with your own eyes, and begin to understand the extreme forces of nature that exist through the light we capture in telescopes, you can begin to grasp the idea that “something Else” had a hand in both the chaos and symmetry of the Universe.
I don’t, for one second think that something much greater and more complex than we can ever imagine DIDN’T create what we see out there — and here. But, I don’t for one second think, either that He watches over us any more than we watch over bacterium that we’ve created in our refrigerators... at least not any more.
I think He gave us the intelligence to think and learn, and to venture beyond this tiny microcosm and to go and do great things. Perhaps we will, or, perhaps like the dinosaurs we’re doomed to die when an asteroid slams into the planet.
(We are almost ready to venture out, beyond and into space, to carry life as we know it further — but we’ve got to get past political, economic, religious and cultural differences. If everyone worked together for the common goal of pushing life as we know it onward to the Stars, we could be doing that within less than 50 years.....but, I don’t see it happening in MY lifetime. )