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advancedatheist comments on [link] On the abundance of extraterrestrial life after the Kepler mission - Less Wrong
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So what happens if we find all these biologically feasible exoplanets that just don't have any life on them?
BTW, you might want to give Matthew Stewart's book Nature's God a read. He points to the unexpected fact that many of the Americans in revolutionary times who wrote down their thoughts on the matter believed in "space aliens," as Stewart calls them, on exoplanets throughout the universe, and that these colonial Americans considered this arbitrary belief "rational" because of the peculiar way early modern philosophy originated from the revival of Epicureanism around the beginning of the 17th Century.
Reference:
http://books.google.com/books?id=L69bAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT45&lpg=PT45&dq=matthew+stewart+space+aliens&source=bl&ots=ruXJKJ-oGO&sig=LiQm__PtCVmXuVVGmEAueb2sLtY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KHCCVJnhBsvhoATsjICwCA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=matthew%20stewart%20space%20aliens&f=false
That would be evidence for an early filter over a late filter, so it would probably be good news.
s/probably/really, really/
This is indeed unexpected. It appears the belief in aliens has been waning instead of waxing as we find out more and more about the universe.
"So what happens if we find all these biologically feasible exoplanets that just don't have any life on them?"
We go forth and put some, of course!
How very human of you,
...Why not Zoidberg?
Due to the the decapodian mating tendencies (which include standing on beaches attracting their mates after which they die) I don't think they would be driven to cause life on other planets. However, it might be a good idea to send the mutants from the sewers. They could reproduce and improve their evolution within the constraints of that new environment.