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gwern comments on 2011 Survey Results - Less Wrong
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Percentage point difference in belief probability isn't all that meaningful. 50% to 51% is a lot smaller confidence difference than 98% to 99%.
69.4% probability means 3.27 odds; 41.2% probability means 1.70 odds.
That means that, in the aggregate, survey takers find (3.27/1.70) = 1.924 -> 0.944 more bits of evidence for life somewhere in the universe, compared to somewhere in the galaxy.
Is that unreasonably big or unreasonably small?
EDIT: Oops, I can't convert properly. That should be 2.27 odds and 0.70 odds, an odds ratio of 3.24, or 1.70 more bits.
I'm not comfortable with bit odds, especially in this context, so I dunno. How would you frame that in the opposite terms, for lack of existence?
That gives .44 odds non-existence in universe, 1.43 odds non-existence in galaxy, a ratio of 3.24, or 1.70 more bits of evidence for no (non-human) life in the galaxy compared to the universe in general.
And I forget why those two answers are allowed to be different...
EDIT: I made an error in the first calculation; as I suspected, the values are symmetric.