Yet again, you reiterate assertions that there must be life elsewhere, without a single shred of evidence to back it up, either from you or those who originally published their guesswork (because that's what it is).

Guesswork != science.

What is it about us humans that makes us smug enough to assume there's only life on Earth and we're the best there is?? We're little more than very evil, self destructive primates and I'd far sooner put money on finding little green men in outer space than oh say, Wacky Jacqui complying with European law or all the greedy spivs apologising for the downturn and turning over their ill-gotten gains.

It's quite amazing how Reg readers can invent 'assertions' in pieces. The only two places that discuss Kepler's mission say:

'The Kepler telescope, expected by many to discover evidence of habitable worlds orbiting other stars...'

Note the word 'habitable', not 'inhabited'. In other words worlds where life as we know it *could* exist.

'At least one serious boffin in America is sure that many such potentially-habitable worlds will be discovered by Kepler, and thus that the existence of life elsewhere in the universe - even if only basic, microbe-level life - is a racing cert. Heavyweight British boffins have also backed this view'.

So the American boffin is sure Kepler will discover worlds that are potentially habitable, again not necessarily inhabited. 'The existence of life is a racing cert', in other words quite likely. How many people have lost substantial amounts of money on 'racing certs'? There's no assertion in this piece that there *must* be life elsewhere.

All science is based on guesswork -- scientists call them hypotheses. They are tested against the facts to see if they're good guesses or bad guesses. The more evidence that supports them, the more likely the guesses are to be correct and the closer they become to scientific 'fact'.

I can offer up some heavyweight evidence to support the notion that a place may be habitable by normal human standards, but no kind of life may be found there. Ladies and gentemen, I give you ... Swindon.

Mines the one with Connies take away menu in the pocket.