It's a thought that grips most everyone who stares into the unfathomable depths of a star-speckled night: Is there anybody out there? The odds, say Peter Ward and Don Brownlee, are probably more remote than you think. Earth, they contend, is simply too special, the result of myriad physical conditions missing from most of the universe, with just enough time and other circumstances to let complicated life arise. "We consider it to be random chance and luck," said Brownlee, a University of Washington astronomer. "Mostly luck...." "We really hope in our heart of hearts that we're completely wrong," said Ward. "We want there to be lots of life out there. We want every star around us to have intelligent life. But as scientists, here's what the evidence in our short lives and our narrow imaginations tells us. We say at the end of the book, perhaps this book is simply a failure of imagination."