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[Sean Mirrsen]

If you consider that water is present in many places even in our solar system, that carbon is a very common element, and that it does not take much for primitive single-cell life to form, I think it's quite possible that at least SOME form of life is present pretty much everywhere. Life's ability to evolve is staggering, and if it appears and survives it will eventually assume such a form that is most suitable to using the environment it exists in. So for example if there is life under the ice on Europa, it might take the form of massive translucent "fish", flat, with natural mechanisms for absorbing energy from the faint light that seeps through the ice. It may also be some other form, for example primarily using heat generated within the planet. Of course, there might be no life on Europa at all - since the exact processes required to form life are not yet clear enough, and we don't know exactly what Europa was and what happened on it in the past.

[Electronic Phantom]

@Sean:  Ummm... when was the last time you examined a single-cell life form?  The last time I checked, and I'm relying on somebody else to be accurate so I haven't actually looked myself (I'm not rich at all, being in college), they outclassed supersonic aircraft in complexity.  Honesty compelled me to add the caveats in the preceding sentence.

I would ask you to prove 'life's staggering ability to evolve,' but I just fell over (I blame momentum:  blasted physics).  Maybe not, but I don't want to go down that path just yet... and I'm sure that particular path doesn't lead anywhere good.  In any case, I don't believe I have the requisite knowledge to either prove or disprove any information that would actually result from the question had I actually asked it.

And that was entirely too much writing on something I didn't want to ask.

-(e)EP

[Jude]

The emergence of life is a staggeringly improbable event. Really, it would start with the emergence of a replicator (nowadays they think RNA was the first to appear) which can then eventually turn into life. But all of these things, not to mention the development from single-celled to multi-celled life, are extremely improbable. The fact that it happened on earth and eventually resulted in us makes it seem inevitable to us, but really, there's no reason to suppose even statistically that it must have happened anywhere else. You need the conditions, for one; a planet with exactly the conditions that ours did a few billion years ago is improbable enough by itself.

[Il Palazzo]

Aren't statements that "emergence of life is staggeringly inprobable" and "it does not take much for a single-cell life to form" equally unbased assumptions?

[Psyco Jelly]

 Did anyone else hear of that study that showed martian soil as being ideal for growing asparagus?

[Vaiolis]

Did anyone else hear of that study that showed martian soil as being ideal for growing asparagus?

I had heard that, although I thought it was that it was ideal for growing in general. Of course I might have just heard the growing part, and missed the asparagus.

[Yanlin]

My teacher grows asparagus for a living. I'll be sure to tell her about that.

[Il Palazzo]

This doesn't bode well for any future colonist's culinary experiences.
(remember the SPAM sketch of Monty Python's?)

[Granite26]

Carbon Based Life
One of the neat things about carbon is it's unique position in the periodic table.  We have an entire branch of chemistry (organic) for all the interesting things carbon does.

In order for life to be non-carbon based, it would have to be based on another element with similar chemical properties (I.E. tons of reactions enabling the detailed dance that is life.)  There are relatively few elements that even come close.

That being said, on the basis of chemistry, we can establish sets of chemical reactions robust enough to support life.  Looking at those sets gives us the capability to generalize.

It also says that it isn't unreasonable to expect life to be similar to earth life.  (Because the same forces of evolution and 'what works' will be in play for alien worlds, even if they come to slightly different answers, or the random processes work out slightly different.)  Take the surface area to cell size bit

RNA and the probability of Abiogenisis
read this... nuff said.

if not : more

Language
IIRC All languages on Earth follow two basic formats, and even they are noun-verb based.  Arguably this is a good representation of reality, but still.

As previously mentioned, all human languages are also linear (One word follows another)

Finally, there's a lot of evidence that are brains are hardwired to use language the way we do.  It's possible we may not be able to even comprehend other languages.  Fun, that.  Same thing for advanced sciences.  We're reaching the limit of the human minds capability to actually grasp our discoveries about the universe.  We may KNOW things, we just don't UNDERSTAND them.

[Jude]

What are the "two major formats" of languages?

But yeah, all the evidence points to linguistic ability being an evolved "organ" just like the heart or kidneys

[Granite26]

General

Head Initial

Head Final

I fall pretty strongly in the innatist category

[Il Palazzo]

Aren't statements that "emergence of life is staggeringly improbable" and "it does not take much for a single-cell life to form" equally unbased assumptions?

Hmmm, I got this wrong. Again.
Aren't statements that "emergence of life is staggeringly improbable" and "it does not take much for a single-cell life to form" equally reasonable assumptions?
There.

[Yanlin]

I wish I knew what a non linear language looked like.

[Il Palazzo]

Anyway, we happily argue about the possibilty of life on other planets without really defining what does constitute "life", which should probably be the first thing to do before starting any discussion on the subject.
So, what IS life? And what isn't?
Is it the replication ability?
Is it the growth?
The localized reduction of entropy?
Is it the storage of information?
Is the cellular structure necessary?
Are e.g.viruses alive?
Is it the complexity?
Does it have to be complex at all?
At which point in time the simple aminoacids of the primordial Earth could be called alive?
etc.

[Sean Mirrsen]

"Life" is something that interacts with the environment, as opposed to being a part of the environment. Any kind of self-propelled motion almost automatically classifies an object as "alive". Plants, being nonmoving, still interact with the environment - they absorb several components of the environment and produce other components and/or more of themselves.

As for the aminoacids, they are alive as soon as they can interact with anything. So once they are able to do something in the world, be it multiplying, moving by themselves, or absorbing some type of material in order to sustain themselves, they are alive. Viruses are different - they cannot exist by themselves, as they do not replicate naturally and usually depend on other living beings (e.g. bacteria) to keep on living. They are "alive", in the most broad sense of the word, but if a planet has nothing but viruslike 'creatures' on it, it may as well be counted as containing no life - viruses, even if they can stay alive indefinetly in some sort of cyst form, do not interact with the environment if there's no other life.