[renormalised (Carl)]

To be brutally honest, most of science is just speculation. We know a few things which, by consensus and relevant observation, we have concluded are facts. The rest is just assumptions thrown into the mix in order to try and explain what we think we see. No matter how successful an idea is in explaining something, it's still just speculation until all the ''i's" are dotted and "t's" crossed and the consensus agree with the matter. Even then further down the track the consensus can, and in most cases does, change and a new paradigm is created.

Here's the real crunch with this notion of no exo-life...if that is the case, then how do you explain the existence of life here, on Earth. Even given the statistics of such an occurrence with respect to the subject at hand, all things being equal we shouldn't be here to be having this conversation. Now, this brings up the touchy subject of intelligent design and divine intervention, because if you were hard pressed to come up with a scientific answer...one that was not only suitable but made scientific sense and could be verified, then you would be made to take the other course of explanation, no matter how distasteful and uncomfortable it might be. How could you prove or disprove of it, otherwise. Once you put a foot on that slippery slope, your whole rationale of science could be called into question. It'd probably get to the stage where we'd all be burnt at the stake for being heretics!!!!. Especially if some people got their way with things (the "moral majority", loony, fundamentalist far right wing of society).

Now, let's look at it in another perspective...for the sake of the argument, let's say that life and intelligent life are very common in the universe. All the scientists are saying "Where are they??!!!". What if they're already here and most scientists just don't want to handle the implications of this. So they dismiss (at least publicly) the whole idea out of hand and use their science to prove this is the case. They come up with things like "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", "it's all misidentification of manmade or natural objects...the planet Venus, optical illusions, car headlights etc etc", "it's all mass hallucinations or mass hysteria", "people have been watching too many B grade sci-fi movies", "Einstein's Theory says......and so it's impossible", and who knows how many other "explanations". What happens is the evidence that is present is just dismissed out of hand, or "studied" and then dismissed out of hand (e.g. the Condon Report, Project Bluebook etc). It's then ridiculed and made fun of by the mainstream press and other media. People then tend to makeup their own minds based on what's going on and what the "experts" have to say. Then you get the government types and the military-industrial complex making up our minds for us and hiding anything they may come across because they don't think the general public can handle the truth or is even entitled to know the truth. They want it and whatever they can get out of it for themselves. People start saying "oh it's conspiracy theory this and that....what a lot of rubbish, no one could keep a secret like that". Problem is, they can and do. Most of the public are too clueless to even figure it out and in any case, if you really want to hide something from everyone, the best place to do so is in plain sight. The whole idea of it being secret ends up a running joke and no one then believes it's true. Little do they realise they're being sold up the creek and hoodwinked so convincingly they mostly don't even know what's going on and other things can also be gotten away with the same impunity. No one knows what's really happening except those intimately involved with the whole enterprise.

Now, what if that scenario is the one being played out. You just don't know for a solid fact, do you. You can't know because you don't have access to all, if any, of the really pertinent information.

Makes the scientists look like idiots...mostly unintentional idiots, but idiots nevertheless because they're supposed to be the smarties here and know enough to prove or disprove this. Scientists are human, just like the rest of us and can be just as easily, if not more easily, hoodwinked. Even by their own ideas. Many just don't like to admit that.

Many also don't like to admit that the data on which many of their ideas are based is just as "flimsy" as any of the UFO reports and data are supposed to be in their eyes, and the eyes of other "experts".

In the final analysis, the only true way we're ever going to be 100% sure of anything is to go and see for ourselves. No use sitting on our collective rear ends pontificating about the merits, either way, of what we think is going on. That ultimately gets us nowhere. Like looking at minerals in rocks from an orbiting satellite around any planet, the only thing you're ever going to know for a fact that you're seeing something that's really there is go and see for yourself. Otherwise, all you're really doing is looking at an approximation of what might be there. Useful though that may be, and generally is what's there anyway, but still it's just an approximation.