[link] On the abundance of extraterrestrial life after the Kepler mission

Gunnar_Zarncke

On the abundance of extraterrestrial life after the Kepler mission Amri Wandel

Some recent calculation of the Drake Equation with estimates of the likelihood and logevitiy of civilizations

On the abundance of extraterrestrial life after the Kepler mission Amri Wandel

Some recent calculation of the Drake Equation with estimates of the likelihood and logevitiy of civilizations

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

what happens if we find all these biologically feasible exoplanets that just don't have any life on them?

That would be evidence for an early filter over a late filter, so it would probably be good news.

4Eniac11y

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!