[chartpath]

Kind of a tangent but I'm really interested in why statements like:

> if you have carbon-based life forms, you will have water and CO2.

..can lead to statements like:

> it is just way more likely than any other form

I totally agree on the observation, but what is fascinating to me is why a deductive statement can be considered to indicate likelihood in probability. It seems there is a bit of abductive reasoning going on behind the scenes which neither the deductive logic or inductive probability can really capture on their own.

[mr_mitm]

I don't see that particular statement "leading" to the second statement. You quoted very selectively and didn't quote the part that is the reason why I believe carbon-based to be much more likely, i.e. the fact that silicon is such a bad candidate and that no other molecule allows complex chemistry. Maybe that helps with your fascination. Obviously I skipped all the actual arguments, but they are easy to find by the interested reader in standard literature.