Tim Thompson last wrote' "I draw a sharp distinction between intelligence and technology, just to avoid the problem of defining intelligence adequately."

Yes, I understand your distinction and how it applies to looking for technological life beyond the reaches of our spacecraft. And, I agree, it's highly unlikely an advanced technological species exists in our solar system.

But, I disagree other species on our planet have such distinctly different brains as to not be capable of abstract thought nor symbolic language. I think technology and intelligence are not useful distinctions to guage the rareity of advanced life on our planet.

Chimpanzies and gorillas can communicate with humans in sign language and with symbolic keyboards. Chimpanzies have recently been taught to communicate with alphabet keys, actually typing out simple names like cat, no matter which order the letters are presented in. In this same research there is strong evidence for chimp vocalizations that communicate names of food types to eachother.

Parrots, with quite different brain structure, have been taught to identify color, shape, material and numbers of objects, and to use language to communicate that information to humans.

Marine mammals live in complex social groups. What alternative explanation would there be for their complex vocalizations than language? I think it's more likely we haven't deciphered the code than that the're only singing mating songs.

Many animals use tools gathering food. There are crows where I live that have their favorite parking lot. They drop filbert nuts from high up to crack them. Chimps use branches that they shake and strike the ground with to threaten other chimps.

We may be the only species on this planet with advanced technology, but we are not the only species with any technology.

I recently heard a computer scientist's response to the question of when he predicted humans and technology would become so linked as to no longer be clearly distinguishable. His answer was, "It happened when we used the first tool".

Getting back to the Rare Earth hypothesis, I think it's worth considering the logrithmic scale technology has developed on. It took millions of years from the first organisms until primates developed. If you use the model in which language and tool use created such a unique species that technology started at that time, then you presumably perceive human primates to be unique and of course, rare.

I do not think the evidence supports that model. Evolutionary science, until recent genetic research was available, looked at survivable traits as the guiding factor in the development of species. Technology, then becomes the distinguishing characteristic that defines humans.

Genetic research now presents us with the true underlying control mechanism. While survivability is still important, it is not at the controls. DNA is. To use the computer as an analogy, it would be like knowing if you typed comands on the keyboard, exactly what would occur. You tested the mechanics inside and out and you have the whole thing mapped out, except the underlying principle of digital communication. Would your word processor look the same as the computer in your car engine?

Back to the logrithmic scale of technological development, if you see DNA changes as the difference between species, rather than some unique ability or characteristic, the continuum of development seems more apparent. Humans are on the vertical curve of the scale. In a very short time, we have moved a tremendous amount higher on the vertical axis but only a short distance on the horizontal axis. That may give the false appearance that we are more different from other species than we actually are.

Advanced technology took several million years to develop. But, if humans had not evolved, it was only a matter of time before another species did. Perhaps in another million years there will be many highly technological species on the planet. Right now the evidence is not direct, and usually you wouldn't want to predict common evolution of higher technology without direct evidence. But, genetic evidence is clear. We are at the top of the technology chain, but it is a chain.

So, given the size and age of the universe, I am certain this is not the first planet in which advanced technology has evolved. I think the evidence we have indicates human technology is not unique, and, given time,we would see other technological species evolve on Earth.

I am not bothered by our lack of finding other technological lifeforms out there. On the time scale of the universe we've been looking for less than a nanosecond.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: beskeptical on 2002-05-09 16:39 ]</font>