> "intuitively I think it's absurd to believe our little planet is the only one with life on it." Intuition is often wrong, especially when it comes to probabi

> "intuitively I think it's absurd to believe our little planet is the only one with life on it." Intuition is often wrong, especially when it comes to probability. We have n planets, which we can rewrite as 10^x. There's a probability to evolve complex life of 10^-y on any given planet. Which is bigger, x or y? By how much? What are your error bounds? I've seen people throw out numbers with thirty zeros after them and think they've made a point, but really, either x or y could be much bigger than 30. There could be complex life on 10^many planets, or it could be a total fluke that it exists even on this one. Either way, your intuition isn't going to tell you anything meaningful.