@SIASL, @Ranxerox911

Yeah, from the exoplanet data we've got so far, we're finding that our Solar System is not at all typical. Before the exoplanet discoveries, we kind of assumed that many star systems would follow the rough pattern of ours.

Smaller rocky planets closer in, where the central star cooks away most of the volatiles like water and hydrogen etc. And then gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, and in-betweener ice-gisnts like Uranus and Neptune out where it's colder, then maybe some more icy runts like Pluto, Sedena, and Quaoar, and comets.

We expected differences of course, but roughly that pattern.

This is not what we're finding.  Jupiter sized gas giants glowing red hot because they somehow spiraled in after forming and now orbit several times closer to their star than Mercury does our Sun. Rocky cores of gas giants that had all the gas blown away by its star. Planets that are bigger than Earth, that may be water all the way through, but the pressure inside after several miles is so great it's "hot ice" in crystalline forms very different than regular ice here on Earth. Ones we can make sometimes in a laboratory diamond vise just a few micrograms at a time.

And there's "puffball" planets that might be gas almost all the way through, unlike Jupiter and Saturn which quickly build up pressure and density to liquid, then metallic hydrogen etc. And we're not completely sure how these "puffy" gas giants stay together.

Add to that 95% of stars are Red Dwarf Class M stars, unlike our G class yellow Sun, it's becoming more and more apparent that our Solar System may be the really weird one.

Long ago I read a very compelling article that theorized silicon could form the basis for life in a manner similar to carbon.

I'm no biologist, nor chemist, but I think it's the pinnacle of hubris to assume we are the only possible prototype for life.

Yeah, we "Don't know what we don't know." until some actual data starts coming in.

But, in the absence of data, there is a kind of guess that can be applied. It's called the Mediocrity Principle.

Essentially, it's a method for making the safest guess you can, when you've got only one example of the phenomenon you wish to think about. While you wait for more data to come in.

Many things in nature, when you can collect lots of data on them, and you graph it out, fall into a Gaussian distribution, also known as a Bell Curve. A big hump in the middle that's the average, and a thin tail of rare examples on either end. Statistically speaking, if you've got only one data point on something, the odds are good that it's somewhere in the big thick hump in the middle of that Bell Curve if/when you can get more data. And that your one example you have is not one of the rare extreme examples on either end.

For example, say you're interested in elephants, but you've only ever seen one of them. The smart money on things like its size and weight, or the length of its tusks, are that they're somewhere around the middle of the graph you'll have someday once you finally see more elephants. And that it's not some rare extremely large or small elephant.

The problem, of course, is that the Mediocrity Principle only works until it doesn't. And you did actually find something rare as your only example.

And when we try to apply the Mediocrity Principle to questions like how rare is the life we see here on Earth as compared to the rest of the Universe, and the existence of Humanity to actually exist and wonder about such things, you run into other problems.

Do we exist in the first place because there's so many stars, and even more planets orbiting them in the Universe?  Which leans towards us being in the big middle average hump of the Bell Curve for one or more aspects of planet formation or how much life is out there, if we could grab lots of data points on that.

Or, do we exist because of a very long string of lucky breaks that led to humanity existing to wonder about this? Like having a mid-sized G2 yellow Sun, which is roughly only 7% of all stars? As opposed to M-class red dwarves, which account for about 75% of all stars. And because we've got a large-ish gas giant in our Solar System like Jupiter, that deflects many comets, more of which would have hit Earth? And because of the early proto-panet collision between a somewhat larger and heavier early Earth, and the roughly Mars sized "Thea", which reduced Earth's size and gravity a bit, and the rubble that formed the Moon? The Moon which helps stabilize Earth's rotation and axial tilt? And so on...

On one hand, the odds of having our Sun, a G2 specifically, are maybe 1% or less, on the other hand, there's a LOT of stars, and despite being only 7% of all stars, there's still over 500 G-class stars within 100 light years of the Sun/Earth.

However, of all the 5,125 exoplanets we've found, in 3,794 star systems so far, it's beginning to look like our Solar System might be on one really skinny tail of the Bell Curve for Star System configurations in the Milky Way and the Universe at large. Way out on one end. Now it's more a matter of figuring out if where we live is like PowerballMega Millions jackpot odds, Or more like winning $1000 in a scratch-off game.

As we collect more and more data, from satellite observatories like Kepler, and now a nearly whole-sky survey from TESS, and other observatories also do their thing and pitch in, we'll get a better and better picture of just how many "Goldilocks"-factors came together for Earth and humanity.

And Now that the James Webb Space Telescope is up and running, there's a chance we can get more exoplanet spectography data, which could show the presence of water, carbon dioxide, methane, and oxygen  in certain amounts that cannot be easily explained by anything other than life there. Granted, it's only going to be evidence for something as simple as basic algae that Earth had 4 billion years ago. But it's presence, or absence would be a lot more than what we kow now, which is bupkis...