First, the article wasn't about human-like technological civilization, but just about life in general. And there are species of animals alive today that have hardly changed in 100s of millions of years. So Kershenbaum would be right if we found some life-forms that vaguely resembled for example a Coelacanth on some exoplanet.
Second, you're ignoring the fact that life as we think of it can really only evolve around at least 3rd-generation stars because you need enough heavy elements. That cuts the age of the "life-capable" universe by at least half, so the window of relatively modern life on earth with respect to the age of the life-capable Universe really isn't that small... let's say 350My out of 7Gy, so about 5%.
Stars that formed in nebulae that had 2 previous cycles of star formation and super novae.
This means that the star’s solar system at that point has sufficient quantities of heavy elements which cannot be produced by stellar fusion, as these elements are produced by super novae and from solar radiation.
Basically all the neutrons that are produced when a star goes boom create the elements that are above iron in the periodic table.
First generation stars are stars that are formed from big-bang gas - mostly hydrogen, a bit of helium, a trace of lithium, and nothing more. Second generation stars are formed from the gasses blown off by the novas of first generation stars. Third generation stars are from the novas of second generation stars.
I suspect that the claim that life as we know it can only evolve there is because life as we know it needs a wide variety of chemical elements. We need carbon and oxygen, of course, but also iron and calcium and magnesium and potassium and so on. You're not going to get that around a first generation star. You might not get enough of it around a second generation star.
can by products of first gen / second gen star creates life-form that is alive in whatever sense we think something is alive, but radically different in whatever capability we think a life form must have ? What is alive in the sense for us to search in universe ?
First gen unlikely unless life can form from the elements created during the Big Bang and w/e minute amounts were created due to solar radiation during the life of the star.
And most importantly first gen stars can’t form planets other than gas giants and even gas giants are questionable because our current understanding that other than a few failed stars these also usually require a heavy element core as a seed.
2nd gen stars are a possibility in a region of space that had a lot of 1st gen stars to nova and there might be sufficient amount of heavy elements already there to form a solar system.
So unless life can form from hydrogen, helium, lithium and beryllium then no life in 1st gen stars.
2nd gen is highly dependent on the region of space although I would posture that any region active enough to create sufficient amount of heavy elements would probably remain too active during the 2nd generation for life or at least complex life to form.
Familar higher orders of complexity emerge far easier within systems with more states.
Due to our physical laws elements with larger rooms for reaction via chemistry are familar.
The chances of a replicating agent just anthropologically emerging from the surface of a 2nd generation hydrogen dominant star with an accumulation disc composed of little higher orders elements is inconceivably less likely than the relative petri dish organic molecules provide.
Second, you're ignoring the fact that life as we think of it can really only evolve around at least 3rd-generation stars because you need enough heavy elements. That cuts the age of the "life-capable" universe by at least half, so the window of relatively modern life on earth with respect to the age of the life-capable Universe really isn't that small... let's say 350My out of 7Gy, so about 5%.