Do you think its possible that life could have evolved on other planets; in a similar manner to Earth?

The key word here is “possible”.
If it happened once, it is possible it will happen or has happened.
No brainer.

@josie But would the right conditions be present for this to be possible?

I think it is not only possible, but likely.
If you lool at the timeline of earth, life emerged almost as soon as the environment allowed it, a mere 500 million years after its formation. A 500 million year period, where the planet’s surface was still largely molten and saw heavy volcanism with a toxic atmosphere.
That indicates that the development of life might be a very trivial affair, and thus common in the universe.

@ragingloli Well put

Highly unlikely. Especially if you think they could pass for humans

My question is why would someone think it’s not possible?

Similar if not the exact same thing. Like the life forms at the very bottom of the oceans, which is a world apart from the surface dwellers.

@ragingloli I thought you were from one such world. You are proof.

Absolutely, given the scale of the universe and the number of planets out there it is exceedingly unlikely that anything that happened on Earth is unique.

It is one of the reasons that astronomers have searched for earth like planets in nearby galaxies; increased odds of some life there.

I think it’s likely also. Probably commonplace.

No. They wouldn’t have Fluther, so it would be quite impossible.

Of course it’s possible.

Equally possible – perhaps even LIKELY – is that life evolved in an infinite number of different ways on an infinite number planets with entirely different physical and chemical makeup than that of Earth’s, so that life elsewhere is totally different from life as we define it.

Mathematically probable.

It seems possible to me.

As @Mariah says, given the scale of the universe and the fact that in the Milky Way alone there are about 20 billion stars similar to our sun, it seems extremely likely that there are millions of other planets out there similar to our earth. Many had opportunities to spawn intelligent life before us. It follows that many should have civilizations far more advanced than ours, with the capacity for interstellar travel and communication.

This begs the question, why have we failed to discover any real evidence of intelligent life beyond the earth? This is called the fermi paradox.

There are several possible explanations. I could try to write about them hear, but honestly you need to just go watch this video now – it is fantastic.