Bostrom is a profound thinker, but I think that his suggestion that finding dead vertebrates on Mars would be Bad News is going a little too far. The fact that Mars might have supported complex life that then died out has no real relevance for the Earth- that planet is entirely different in many characteristics to our own, so may be intrinsically more likely to become a dead planet.
A dead Mars with fossils doesn't imply anything about the existence of a Great Filter that eliminates intelligent life on Earth-like worlds.
However a Dead Mars with cities might give a hint or two... That might suggest that intelligent life tends to die out, despite the emergence of civilisation.
|