On 30 Dec 2017, Gary Harnagel wrote:
It is quite unreasonable to assume that in all the universe we are the
first. In fact, it is unreasonable to assume that a civilization like
ours didn't develop billions of years ago.

Ding! Wrong. A first one is a requirement, therefore it cannot be
unreasonable to posit it in the absence of knowledge of any other.
The odds of spontaneous life could be arbitrarily close to zero. That
we are here (necessary for this discussion to take place) has zero
commentary on the odds of spontaneous life anywhere else.