Ian, that is exactly the argument I so often find myself wearily putting before others, who never understand what I'm saying...
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Originally posted by Sydney
Evolution doesn't "pick paths", the environment does. Intelligent life would likely require a similar environment to earth's, so similar organisms would develop.
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Pardon my ignorance, but exactly why do you assume that Intelligent Life is only likely to occur on Earthlike planets? If you think about it, life doesn't even necessarily have to be Carbon-based, or use Oxygen. Even though these are the most effective elements for their purpose, there are other elements that can function similarly, and it is perfectly feasible that, on planets with a lack of those two elements (and of Nitrogen, Hydrogen, Sulphur, and Phosphorous, the other four elements essential to human life), the other elements would be used instead. If that were the case, then life would most likely be (as Ian says) different enough to be unrecognisable to us...
In fact, it is possible that planets with abundances of alternative elements may well be more common that Earth-like planets, in which case life based on those alternative elements would probably be in fact
more common that Carbon-based life...
I know this is going beyond Ian's initial point. I felt he explained it thoroughly well, and I had nothing to add, so I thought I'd extend the hypothesis...