Hawkins alien comments are speculative.
the problem is time and distance, and evolution. I'm sure there are aliens out there, but are they around even to meet us.
they could range from "too primitive" to dead civilizations
Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm
Just saying. We might simply look like 6,000,000,000+ head of cattle to any life that is advanced enough to ever get here.
Of course, reardess of who is out there, they face the exact same problems we would in getting to them. Time.
The laws of physics are pretty constant throughout the Universe. Living Organisms probably follow a similiar set of guidelines. Since travel between Stars, even at the speed of light, can be as close as four years, (Alpha Centauri) to billions of years, the chance of survival seem slim.
I personally think that the odds are that there are millions, if not billions of Planets very similiar to our Earth, considering the trillions and trillions of stars out there.
One thing to ponder. If we are looking a object that is millions and millions of light years away, how do we know if at this moment it time it even still exist?