Desperately seeking aliens

Belief that intelligent life is commonplace in the Universe was taken for granted by scholars and scientists until well into the nineteenth century. Space travel since the late 1950s reignited the debate, which even now attracts discussion by serious, professional scientists. And although statisticians might lobby that life must surely exist somewhere in the Universe, the evolution of what we perceive as 'intelligent life' seems utterly improbable - elsewhere as well as on Earth. Can we free ourselves of our animist fantasies and accept that all alien forms of intelligent life are, and always have been, imaginary?.