NASA's Kepler Discovers more planets in 'Habitable Zone'

[Glaucus]

We aren't clueless at all? We have a good idea as to how it could have started and have demonstrated the same scenario in a lab. As to what form life might take on another planet, who knows.

No we haven't?
We have not demonstrated the spark of life.
Are best so far is showing how some pre requisite compounds are formed, nothing more.
ATM there is no evidence for how rare or common life is.

 

[Macro]

The element people tend to leave out when discussing if there's life elsewhere is the almost infinite expanse of time. The same rule that says the mind boggling numbers of stars and planets in the universe almost certainly means there is life elsewhere is counter balanced by the mind boggling expanse of time meaning that it happening to coincide with us looking is negligible.

That there is another planet that has/will support advanced life as we recognise it is for me a relative certainty. That life happens to exist, be recognisable by us and close enough for us to detect it at this precise (give or take a few hundred years) moment in time across a time scale of thousands of billions of years seems to make the chances slim to none.

I'd love to be proved wrong though

 

[JBod]

The element people tend to leave out when discussing if there's life elsewhere is the almost infinite expanse of time. The same rule that says the mind boggling numbers of stars and planets in the universe almost certainly means there is life elsewhere is counter balanced by the mind boggling expanse of time meaning that it happening to coincide with us looking is negligible.

That there is another planet that has/will support advanced life as we recognise it is for me a relative certainty. That life happens to exist, be recognisable by us and close enough for us to detect it at this precise (give or take a few hundred years) moment in time across a time scale of thousands of billions of years seems to make the chances slim to none.

I'd love to be proved wrong though

Surely it makes it more likely? Unless we happen to be the first or last form of life of course, which would be exceptionally unlikely.

 

[Nix]

All life is closely related, even the extremophiles so they must come from a common ancestor, but genetic code varies with species, i.e. we share 98% with a chimpanzee but also nearly 50% with a banana.

I understand that. I've just recalled what the extremophile was, and it wasn't to do with the DNA/RNA being unique, but rather the extremophile being arsenic based. There was obviously a lot of talk of DNA/RNA and phosphorous, which with memory being the way it is, is why my wires got slightly crossed.

 

[Macro]

Surely it makes it more likely? Unless we happen to be the first or last form of life of course, which would be exceptionally unlikely.

Not necessarily, if a life form lasts 1m years it might have a period of 100k years where it is advanced/similar to us enough for us to detect it meaningfully. We've only been recognisable as "Humans "as we know it for a few 10s of thousands of years and able to use technology in a way that we could communicate/detect life off planet for maybe 100 years.

On the scale of the size of the entire universe, and the scale of billions of years of time from the start to the end(?) of the universe the likelihood of two sets of life being in similar enough stages of evolution and technology coinciding over the same few thousand (let alone hundreds) of years out of hundreds of billions at the same time in the same region of space make for a pretty slim chances.

Of course if you're looking for basic bacteria type life that could last unchanged for millions or billions of years without evolving in a way we would recognise the chances are better but as astounding as that would be intelligent life is really what we're after

 

[JBod]

Not necessarily, if a life form lasts 1m years it might have a period of 100k years where it is advanced/similar to us enough for us to detect it meaningfully. We've only been recognisable as "Humans "as we know it for a few 10s of thousands of years and able to use technology in a way that we could communicate/detect life off planet for maybe 100 years.

On the scale of the size of the entire universe, and the scale of billions of years of time from the start to the end(?) of the universe the likelihood of two sets of life being in similar enough stages of evolution and technology coinciding over the same few thousand (let alone hundreds) of years out of hundreds of billions at the same time in the same region of space make for a pretty slim chances.

Of course if you're looking for basic bacteria type life that could last unchanged for millions or billions of years without evolving in a way we would recognise the chances are better but as astounding as that would be intelligent life is really what we're after

Science fiction has taught me that the possibility is high that technological achievements have a snowballing effect. Intelligent life reaches a self sustaining momentum that takes them outside normal life cycles.

While I recognise I am limited but what I know and my own life bubble I can see only a major catastrophic world ending event preventing humans from being around millions of years from now.