18 - Possible Forms of Life in Environments Very Different from the Earth

Summary

Introduction

We can make only a brief presentation here of our ideas on the extent of life in the universe. A much more detailed account is given in our book Life Beyond Earth: The Intelligent Earthling's Guide to Life in the Universe (Feinberg & Shapiro, 1980).

In discussions concerning intelligent life elsewhere, the assumption is often made that such life will develop only in circumstances resembling those on Earth. Estimates are then given of the number of Earth-like planets in our Galaxy, as suitable locations in which life might arise. Such estimates may vary, according to the pessimism or optimism of the observer, from the very few (Hart, 1979) to a billion or more (von Hoerner, 1978). Only those planets are considered habitable which fall into a limited zone around each star. In that zone, liquid water can be present on the surface, and carbon compounds will be abundant. If this view were correct, even in the most optimistic form, then life would be a rare phenomenon, confined to only an insignificant fraction of the material in the universe. From an extreme pessimist's viewpoint, as expressed elsewhere in this book, life may have originated only on the planet Earth. The idea of the specialness of the Earth is of course an old one, and has been expressed many times in theology.

We represent a very different point of view: that the generation of life is an innate property of matter.