Ahhh … good ol' Julius-the-optimist at it again ??
During my break, I had someone attempting to argue that if all the exo-planets out there had zero water, then you could say that the probability of exo-life was zero. (I agreed).
and then .. that if this were the case, (by the same logical premise), then if all the exo-planets out there DID have liquid water, then the chance of life as we know it, are increased. Everytime we find a planet with liquid water, then the chances of life as we know it, are increased.
I disagreed, as the 'life as we
don't know it' component, may significantly swamp the proportion of 'life as we
do know it' component, thereby swinging the chances back to even. (I decided that I started to sound too much like 'Sir Julius-the-renormalised' … so I went for another beer …
Cheers