Bad news for SETI, but I am suspicious of "unicity" claims, usually backed by religious zealots who want reality to stick to their book at any price: They told us the Old World was unique, that Earth was at the center of the universe, that the Solar system was the sole planetary system, that Earth was the unique rocky planet...and every fact was disproved. So what now ? Contrary to the scientific method, they design the methods to back their theory, instead of observing nature without prejudice. They WANT us to be unique !
Predictably, this study is backed by no statistical or probability analysis.
Reality is stubborn, however, and whatever they say, the universe comprises hundreds of billions of galaxies that contain hundreds of billions of stars. Searching a needle in that haystack, serious astronomers already evidenced 300 planets using SCIENTIFIC methods of observation, including more and more earth-like (a 1/3 of them, as it is now estimated), although they've been searching very recently and with very poor subsidies so far because the money is diverted to silly and totally useless manned missions to inhabitable solar planets that can be studied as well from afar. This diversion is entirely driven by chauvinism. Astronomy is a SCIENCE, not an extreme-sport !
I'm confident that given the mind-blowing magnitude of the universe and the length of its history, whatever the probabilities, millions of planets will be evidenced if only we dedicate the necessary energy, and I'll slap the next wackoos who will tell us we're unique again with a fish...
Aug 8, 2008
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