[renormalised (Carl)]

Well, I can tell you right now that we won't see NASA or anyone else find life elsewhere in our lifetimes simply because of what's going on down here right at this minute. I doubt NASA will be going anywhere for a rather long time, in so far as manned (and even in some cases unmanned) missions go. In any case, as Bert said, there is no intelligent life present in this Universe. You couldn't call the so called sentient species dominating this planet, intelligent. If it was, we'd be in a much better position than what we are. So, both camps are wrong. They just don't know and it's rather pointless arguing about it. They're both coming at it from a system of belief and have the "evidence" and "science" to back their PoV's up.

You can make maths (and theory) predict anything you like and you can use it to back up any preconceived notion you want. Until you have proof to the contrary or to the affirmative, it's all just conjecture. Chaos theory or any other theory tells you nothing...until you have evidence to back it up (empirical, anecdotal or otherwise) it's nothing more than just reasonable (or wild, as the case may be) speculation.

However, given what we do know about life here on Earth and given what we know about how the Earth formed and the conditions which followed subsequently etc etc etc. And given what I know about these areas of science, it is my assertion that the same patterns that were found to be here, will also be found to be elsewhere. If there's life here, all things being equal, it will also be elsewhere. What that life might be, I haven't a clue, but there's nothing to say it won't follow similar patterns to what we have here. But it could equally be totally different altogether. That's the beauty of it all. The possibilities are endless.