[theyellowkid]

>There's an entire genre of these kinds of books that extrapolate generalities (life throughout the Universe) from a single data point (life on Earth), but the truth is, that's not even an educated guess.

Hey, whatever sells a pop science book pounded out over a long weekend.

It's funny how sure everyone was about slowing expansion of the universe and the idea of close rocky planets/distant Jupiters, but only lucky guessers are remembered.

It could simply be that patterns for lifeforms on Earth were set so long ago that everything sort of rhymes. Veer that path at the beginning and you end up with a significantly different answer.

[JoeAltmaier]

Nah. Think of fish - and the assertion "There's no such thing as a fish." That refers to the similar evolution of many branches of life that ended up "looking like a fish" but are otherwise unrelated.

They had a common ancestor of a coral-like sea squirt (If I remember right). That looked nothing like a fish.

[rendall]

That's so in alignment with my thinking I'd like to buy you a beer

[Koshkin]

> drink it and forget it all!

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/78268-a-poet-once-said-the-...

[rendall]

Koshkin, theyellowkid, I, and whoever else thinks aliens are probably profoundly weird: drinking and coming up with increasingly outlandish ideas for aliens. Now that sounds like a party.

[theyellowkid]

When considering deeper questions, I always think of this short story.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33854/33854-h/33854-h.htm