The Truth is Out There

Okay, so I'm doing a little studying, and out of the blue I realized something.  

You know how all those scientists are looking out into space, checking out other galaxies and shit like that, getting all excited because they're finding planets that could support life -- but not finding any evidence of extra-terrestrial life? 

If you don't, take my word for it. There are a lot of people doing just that. 

Well, I got curious.  I wondered just how close these other galaxies are.  I Googled it, and according to Wikipedia (granted, not the best possible source, but fine for my purposes), the closest proper galaxy is over a million light-years from ours (if I'm reading the chart correctly). 

I think pretty much everyone knows that a light-year is the distance that light travels in a year. Okay.  So that means the light we are seeing from that galaxy is over a million years old.  

What was happening on Earth a million years ago? Near as I can tell, not a whole lot. Apparently the first Homo Sapiens didn't even show up until about 100,000 years ago. The walking monkeys that were around before that were just getting funky with rocks.  

Now, I'm no expert, or even an educated amateur -- I'm occasionally interested and I read science and astronomy articles when they're featured on Yahoo.  But from what I can tell, our current technology is incapable of zooming in very closely to these planets they're finding.  Certainly not enough to see what's really going on there.  So a lot of their conclusions is based on, really, educated guesswork -- and that based on the only life we do know of, that of Earth.  

Add to that the fact that Earth, in galactic terms, is kind of fucking remote. Seriously! We're like hicks!  There are places out there where solar systems are packed together like tenements in a ghetto.  Earth is Nebraska, these places are like SoCal or New York.  Or Sao Paolo. 

So... I'm just saying, what the hell are these guys doing, shaking their heads sadly and saying there can't be life out there?  They are basing these conclusions on information that's millions of years old, and using a very narrow view of what constitutes "life".  

I'm sure I'm not the first to realize this, but it did just come to me as a revelation. And yes, it is true that I already believed in extra-terrestrial life. But still, man.  I'm not even saying this proves anything. I'm just saying that unless we get more up-to-date news, we can't disprove anything, either.