I won't eat anything that has intelligent life, but I'd gladly eat a network executive or a politician.

…only in the few universes that are like ours would intelligent beings develop and ask the question: “Why is the universe the way we see it?” The answer is then simple: If it had been any different, we would not be here!

I won't eat anything that has intelligent life, but I'd gladly eat a network executive or a politician

It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.

If this is the only planet on which not only life, but intelligent life, has arisen, that would be very unusual.

Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence.