I'd like to offer an alternative explanation for our lack of evidence of extraterrestrial life. One crucial factor to consider is our current technological limitations. Our tools for discovering potentially habitable planets and detecting signs of life are still in their infancy.

To put this into perspective, consider the challenges we face even closer to home. Despite having made multiple missions to the moon, some people still question whether we have actually been there. This skepticism exists even though we have left physical artifacts on the lunar surface, which are unlike anything naturally occurring on the moon. If there is doubt about our achievements with a celestial body a mere 384,400 kilometers away, imagine the difficulty in proving the existence of life on planets that are light-years away.

Our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri, is over 4 light-years away, and many of the stars we study for potential exoplanets are hundreds or thousands of light-years distant. The vast distances involved mean that our observations are limited and often indirect, relying on methods such as transit photometry or radial velocity, which can only tell us so much.

Additionally, the light we observe from distant stars and planets is thousands of years old. This means that any signs of life we have not detected are based on ancient light that took millennia to reach us. Given that humanity's technological advancements have occurred over just a few thousand years, it is plausible that extraterrestrial civilizations could also advance rapidly. By the time their light reaches us, they may have already undergone significant development or even relocated, making detection even more challenging.

As our tools and methods improve, we may find that the galaxy is far more populated than it currently appears.