Intelligent life beyond Earth might not be as dim a hope as many scientists think, according to a new study challenging a widely held anti-ET argument.
Many skeptics tout an idea called the anthropic argument that claims extraterrestrial intelligence must be very rare because the time it takes for intelligent life to evolve is, on the average, much longer than the portion of a star’s existence that is conducive to such life.
But now astrobiologist Milan M. Cirkovic and colleagues say they’ve found a flaw in that reasoning.
The anthropic argument, proposed by astrophysicist Brandon Carter in 1983, following on his pioneering work on anthropic principles in 1970s, is built on the assumption that the two timescales – the lifecycle of a star and the time required for evolution of living and intelligent creatures – are completely independent. If this is true, Carter argued, it’s extremely unlikely that these two windows of possibility would last roughly the same amount of time, and would occur at the same time.
But that mode of thinking is outdated, Cirkovic claims. In fact, he says the relevant timescales are not independent; they are deeply entwined.
[…]
“The speed of evolution is very variable,” Cirkovic said. “There is no reason to think that life on Earth has only one single origin. It is quite possible that there were several beginnings of life on Earth.”Cirkovic also notes that the evolution of intelligent life could occur slower or faster in different settings, and need not follow the astrobiological history of the Milky Way.
This provides more ammunition against the anti-evolutionists.
#7–Pop==your post is totally bounded by the SciFi you watched as a kiddie.
I don’t think you realize how “big” space is. How far apart the galaxies/systems/stars are. Nor how much energy it takes to approach light speed.
Without doubt, the odds suggest there is intelligent communicating life out there somewhere. The importance of it equals the same as if it were not.
We are functionally/pragmatically on our own.
#31 – bobbo,
We are functionally/pragmatically on our own.
Yes. Especially if the other intelligences in the universe want nothing to do with us.
http://tinyurl.com/n2g9mz
Just to add another little quirk to this thread, there are a significant number of people on this planet who are very interested in sentiences elsewhere while simultaneously ignoring the other sentiences with whom we share this insignificant little rock.
How many of you knew there are chimps who have started making and using spears to hunt?
How many of you are aware that dolphins are able to understand a significant number of our requests, even including such complex concepts as “be creative and think up a new trick”?
Did you also know that dolphins can interpret the two dimensional pixilated images on a television screen correctly as being images of humans and can even understand requests made of them by such projected images?
It’s amusing that they can understand moderately complex concepts from us … and we understand precisely zero of what they say.
How many of you knew that prairie dogs (yes, rodents hardly known for their intelligence) actually have different calls for human and human with gun? Also, they recognize individual humans that once walked by with a gun and give the human with gun call even when said human does not have a gun. Can you recognize individual prairie dogs? They can recognize you.
Did you know that crows make and use tools? When they make a particularly good one, they cache it away for later reuse. Bird brains indeed!
I’m not saying I’d reduce funding for SETI. I’m merely saying that we might want to concentrate some more resources on studying the other sentiences right here at home.
I’d love to know, for example, what a sperm whale thinks with that 18 pound brain, the largest on the planet, even if not the highest EQ. That’s an awful lot of brain.
They mess with us for fun. But, then they always run and hide.
They don’t want get on our radar screen, literally or figuratively, because they figure we’ll always want to borrow things, sponge off of them, and basically become a huge pain in their ass.
But, they can’t resist messing with us.
# 19 NancyDisgrace said, “With all the SETI work not a blip!
None if them transmit any radio? None are so advanced they can’t move stars around , build
Dyson spheres ,”ringworlds” or anything obvious?”
A race that builds ‘Dyson’ spheres might conceivably have thought up something slightly more efficient than radio waves. A race that moves stars around might not watch ‘Friends’ reruns.
# 9 Benjamin said, “Christ’s death in Jerusalem on Earth would be sufficient to cover any hypothetical alien’s sin…”etc.
This is absolutely the most egocentric and unfathomable biblical BS I have ever heard. I am totally astonished. Do you also believe the sun orbits the earth?
#35 Unfathomable biblical BS??? Do you know any Christian Orthodox Theology or are you just trolling??
#36 – Animby probably has it right. I know of no mention of aliens in the bible, nor any mention of life elsewhere in the universe. In fact, to think that the bible applies here is BS. To think that it applies elsewhere in a universe far more vast and complex than anything envisioned by the authors of the bible is unfathomable BS.
And if the Author of the Bible created the universe you would think he would have mentioned aliens in it in some way. 🙂
# 26 Misanthropic Scott:
“As yet, we do not know how to make any ship biologically sterile…”
Actually, I don’t think that’s correct — I seem to recall reading that the Viking Mars landers were sterilized before launch and kept sterile until they landed on Mars. (After that, who knows?)
In any case, I think if we find no life on Mars, Europa, Titan or any other likely places, we should seed each of them with assorted colonies of organisms that seem to have a good chance to survive in each place.