One hundred years ago Percival Lowell, famous for claiming Mars had canals, wrote that life is “inevitable” because it is just chemistry. Today, every child knows there are no canals on Mars – and no Martians either.  Lowell’s egregious imagining resulted from mixing meager evidence with his preconceptions.  We should avoid his hubris. As for more distant aliens, the vast size of the cosmos simultaneously permits speculations about ETI but means that nearly all are too distant to confirm or rebut. Astronomers have already discovered and partially characterized over 7000 exoplanets, an important achievement that includes some planetary atmospheres.  But in this sample none are like Earth; most are hostile to life.  In the lab, there is no evidence that chemistry alone guarantees the origin or evolution of ETI either on Mars, exoplanets, or even from a test tube.  Having enough time, for example, is a critical ingredient but most known exoplanets are in unstable environments.   As a result, even if the cosmos were fertile, we are almost surely alone.