* Jack Sargeant Said to, Laurie Appleton something like:
 LA> Hi Jack, (Re: yours of 09-Feb-1998, "abductees.")
 LA> LA> Everywhere we have been in the Solar system we have found no sign
 LA> LA> of life what ever and all efforts to communicate with any other
 LA> LA> forms of life have failed miserably. The reasonable conclusion
 LA> LA> is that this Earth is the ONLY place where any life exists and has
 LA> LA> ever existed!
 LA> JS> The universe is too big for a conclusion such as you suggest.
 LA> JS> There are 200 billion suns in our Milky Way galaxy. There are at
 LA> JS> least that same number of >other< galaxies. To suggest we are the
 LA> JS> only life in all these trillions of galaxies is extremely
 LA> JS> self-centered.
 LA> Now now now Jack. There is no call for personal abuse, surely!
 LA> Just try to stick to the facts eh. After all most Gallup Polls and
 LA> similar things only take a sampling of the views of the population
 LA> and we form judgements on such things.
 LA> So in the 'sampling' that our best scientists have made of the
 LA> Universe to date we can properly conclude, in terms of what we *DO*
 LA> know that we are ALONE! That has NOTHING with being "self-centered"
 LA> at all, but has everything to do with our scientific findings.
 LA> I doubt if anything further has been found since a recognised
 LA> scientist wrote in 1985 that;
 LA> "All the trails that Man has so far followed have led to dead-ends.
 LA> Radio astronomers have picked up no messages from the stars;
 LA> biologists have not been able to show that life would inevitably
 LA> arise on an Earth-like world circling another star; astronomers
 LA> have not even proved that other stars have planetary systems;
 LA> and there is no evidence that aliens have ever visited the earth."
 LA> (The Mysterious Universe, Nigel Henbest, 1985 edition, p.117)
 One solar system Laurie.....a statistician would tell you that you can not 
do statistics with such a small sample space.  The question is open, though 
not to you, as you push your own agenda. 
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