Is there intelligent life beyond Earth?
I have been reading “The Greatest Show On Earth”, the evidence for evolution presented by Richard Dawkins. Towards the very end of the book, he offers the most succinct and likely answer to the question of life beyond our planet that I have see:
“My guess, for what it is worth (not much, because there are too many unknowns), is that life is very rare, but that the number of planets is so large (more are being discovered all the time) that we are probably not alone, and there may be millions of islands of life in the universe. Nevertheless, even millions of islands could still be so far apart that they have almost no chance of ever encountering one another, even by radio. Sadly, as far as practicalities are concerned, we might as well be alone.”