Its much more likely that intelligent alien life exists than not just based on the sheer size of the universe. Its silly to think we're the only planet harboring intelligent life in a cosmos bigger than anyone can even wrap their heads around. Are they visiting us is the only question. Open-minded with healthy skepticism is the best approach IMO.
Other life out there? Sure, I'll bite.
Intelligent life? Maaaaaybe.
Intelligent life that far surpasses our knowledge and understanding? I'm not ready to make that leap.
What most - if not all - believers never seem to take into consideration is some entity/entities is/are the king of the hill. Why does almost no one consider that human beings may be just that?
Evolution of human beings was the result of millions upon millions of years of development, cataclysm, natural geological events, and
some pretty damned good luck (can't underscore this enough). Predators, famine, floods, extreme temperatures, foraging for sustenance, war, discovery...it is endless, and humans are but the pinhead of a blip in the history of this planet. Everything had to go right. It's not unlike "an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters and an infinite number of years could reproduce the works of William Shakespeare." It's a good thing they didn't run out of ribbon.
I think there has been a deification of the unknown and a refusal to acknowledge it. There is a fetishization of, "Well, we can't be IT, now, can we? There HAS to be more intelligent life out there." I genuinely think people want to feel there is life out there which can provide us with the technology to improve our own lives, expand our knowledge, give us guidance, and do all this with the benevolence of a doting grandmother. Still others feel there is life out there which would annihilate mankind with the wobble of their tentacles only after they have finished studying us, probing us, and making off with our natural resources. I think both outcomes is asking a bit much of these supposed starship troopers.
The universe is so incomprehensibly vast, what is the chance we would be visited unless stumbled upon? We're not a needle in a haystack - we're an electron in a solar system in relative comparison. I think people hang onto this notion that we are a gyrating, booty-clapping target and as obvious a destination as if "Pedro sez..." signs were guiding spaceships to us like we were a South of the Border tourist trap. Rational thinking espouses the possibility of life "out there" existing beyond Earth. It's mathematically probable. It is also mathematically possible (because possibility exists in the absence of absolutes) we are the only planet with intelligent life, regardless of how many "9"s exist to the right of the decimal.
The absence of hard evidence is not the confirmation of its probability...or even its possibility. Believe, if you want. Speculate to your heart's desire. It's no skin off my nose. If I'm wrong and we are presented with irrefutable scientific proof, I'll gladly take the pulpit and announce as such. Until such time, I'm happy being the king of the hill and will gladly review the facts without bias.
