An argument often given for why Earth couldn’t host another form of life is that once the life we know became established, it would have eliminated any competition through natural selection. But if another form of life were confined to its own niche, there would be little direct competition with regular life. And, in any case, natural selection doesn’t always mean winner-takes-all.
— Paul Davies, from his op-ed “The Aliens Among Us” in last Thursday’s New York Times.
The theoretical physicist/cosmologist/astrobiologist who appeared in “Einstein’s God” posits that we should look “under our noses” — right here on Earth — for extraterrestrial life as well as scanning the universe. If you’re at all intrigued by the thought of extraterrestrial life, this article will get the synapses firing.
Trent Gilliss, senior editor
