The One Critical Mistake Alien Hunters Keep Making

[Warpy]

2. The bias is "life as we know it," and the key isn't methane,

something that is relatively abundant, it's phosphorous, which is not. It's basic on this planet, forming the phospho lipid cellular membrane of everything we've found that meets the criteria for "alive," and some that does not, like viruses.

Perhaps other worlds have evolved different strategies for protecting DNA and RNA from destruction by radiation of all types, but we're really not equipped to realize it's alive, let alone intelligent, not yet.

Give us a few million years, if we don't blow ourselves up or poison ourselves into extinction, we might be ready to figure it out.