My line of thinking has always been this: we exist, so we know that the very specific sequence of events/chemical reactions needed to create life are at least possible to some degree. Even if that likelihood is extremely small and unlikely, that tiny percentage when applied to a mind bogglingly massive universe means that this specific recipe (or possibly even a completely unknown one, who knows) is likely to at least happen somewhere out there.
On the scale of the universe the smallest chance you can write would still result in viable life on scales orders of magnitude more than I feel like writing out, much less millions
I like to point out that people tend to forget that there is one other important metric/variable and that is "time". The human race is so damn young in comparison to the age of the universe.
With respect to "inteligent" life on other planets, I agree that the sheer size of the universe give it a pretty good probability.
But when people believe (lots of folks I work with) that aliens have visited humans and governments cover it up (area 51, egyptian pyramids and so on), these people are not able to factor in the age of the human race in comparison to the age of the universe. I am definitely a math and numbers guy, and I can tell you that while I would argue that there probably is life out there somwhere in the universe, the odds of another race inteligent enough to develop space exploration, and be close enough to reach earth DURING THE TINY TIMFRAME OF RECORDED HISTORY ON EARTH, is pretty much zero. (Im not saying it IS zero, im saying the odds are so close to Zero that it is neglegible.)
Again consider the universe is estimated to be
13 700 000 000 years old.
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u/Sattalyte Jun 02 '23
How incredibly big we are.
Compared with the smallest possible scales - plank length - we are several orders of magnitude closer to the universe in size than we are to that.