Mark you are correct that, given our current best models of the universe, we should develop constructs along the need to consider (parsimoniously of course) a life-among-the-stars alternative. It is not irrational at all. The key is not, as this blog has done, to proclaim loudly that one already has the answer, and that it is a resounding NO!!! Where did we gain the enormous amounts of data to make this conclusion to the scientific method? Rather we should ask, ‘What do I need to do in order to develop this, and the other more likely alternatives into actual hypotheses?’ and ‘What is the next critical path question to be asked under the Scientific Method?’ Until we are able to do that, loud proclamations are simply counter-rhetoric. But I do agree, we possess nowhere near a confidence interval establishing level of data on any of the supposed measures. We have to wait.

I hear less about the alien postulate from the whacked fringe than I do of it from the so-called skeptic community, who appear to be enormously fixated on decrying the option within hours of each FRB intercept. In my experience in science, people who practice this type of thought control (albeit in more conventional hypothesis reductions) do not last long in their jobs.

It is never science to simply presume, declare and walk away – no matter how ludicrous the alternative set under consideration might have been 100 years ago, or in a religious dark age.