[pfdietz]

Yes. Of course, I was not arguing that life must be rare, I was arguing that the evidence we have does not compel one to believe life must exist elsewhere in the universe. The opposite of belief is not belief in the opposite.

[raxxorrax]

There are rare instances where people say that life exists elsewhere, other just state that there is a possibility > 0.

I agree that it is arbitrary that the dimension of the exponent of n has to be larger than the negative one of p. That probably stems from the assumption that the universe is endless.