[caymanjim]

There's a reason life is carbon-based, and it's not random. It's the only element that works, due to abundance; ability to form many bonds; bonds that are just durable enough but not too durable. There's plenty of sci-fi about silicon-based life, but that's infeasible fantasy. And no other elements have any hope. If you have carbon-based life, you need water as solvent and medium.

It's a pretty safe assumption that all life requires water.

[Animats]

> There's plenty of sci-fi about silicon-based life, but that's infeasible fantasy.

Right. Silicon dioxide is quartz.

Longer analysis.[1]

[1] https://www.the-ies.org/analysis/does-silicon-based-life-exi...

[marcosdumay]

> due to abundance; ability to form many bonds; bonds that are just durable enough but not too durable

Well, the thing is that all of those are environment-dependent.

We do have data on a somewhat diverse set of environments, and it's enough to confirm what we knew about the flexibility of carbon. But it's not enough to disprove the alternatives.