Some people even go farther than that and say it is unlikely to have risen more than once.

What do you guys think?

"Son, if it's terrestrial intelligence, it damn sure ain't extra." -- Fred Reed

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"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes

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An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

It's a possibility, but we don't know enough yet to really say. Maybe in a few decades we can make a better estimate. We know or will soon have estimates of what fraction of stars are similar to our sun, how many are binaries, how many have planets similar to the earth, how many have pretty circular orbits, how many planets are in the "habitable" zone, etc.

But that's a long way from knowing how rare life is and how rare intelligence is, and how many spacefaring species there are out there. We probably won't live long enough to find out, unless there is some sort of a SETI breakthrough.

When I was a teenager reading Astounding Science Fiction, I believed that I had been born 500 years too soon. Now I'm not so sure. We may be in a new dark age in 500 years, so we might as well like what we've got. Don't really have a choice.

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It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
--Arthur C. Clarke

I think natural selection somewhat favors intelligence, atleast in the more complex type of life, but how did humans get become so much smarter than other animals, I mean we are so much smarter than the smartest animals...thats what boggles my mind I think being bidepal and having opposable thumbs had something to do with it...

If evolution favors intelligence, why here on Earth are the vast, vast majority of species and individuals dumb as bacteria?

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Thats why I said "...in the more complex animals", bacteria, virus, etc are one of the most simple organisms on the planet but they still dominate the Earth's biomass.

Dumb as bacteria, not are bacteria.

Plants are complex. Sponges? Worms? Echinoderms? Arachnids? Fishes?

Maybe you'd better define complex. Then what percent of complex species would you consider intelligent?

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This could be the only place in the universe where intelligent life has evolved.

We are the universe looking at itself.

All depends what you mean by intelligence.

But how many species have risen and become extinct on this planet in the past 4 billion years?

And how many reached the level of modern human intelligence?

Only one species out of billions........ IMHO that places the odds of intelligent life being common in the universe (as a percentage of all life) at very low.

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Andy

Manager Ukweatherworld

We can't look at Earth to necessarily tell us what will happen on other planets. We are the only animal with the capability of abstract thought, so we assume we are somehow an endpoint. In 10 million years, what animal will be the most intelligent? Has our intelligence put us above evolution? Or will we be surpassed by an even more intelligent animal? Our frame of reference is so small that we can't even comprehend how evolution happens - it is just out of our reach to see it in our minds. And if we can't imagine it happening, we often don't think it exists, like the possibility of more than 3 dimensions.

So this is a great question, but we have to look somewhere else for the anwer, or wait 10 million years. Which do you think is the better option?

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"We can't test an elixer of immortality! It'd take forever!"

Anybody who seriously contemplates the immensity of our universe, can not possibly believe that intelligent life is unique to our insifgnicficant little planet rotating around our insignificant little sun.

Ah, but there's that word: "believe." I believe there is no point in speculating or taking a position until we have some data to make an argument.

Of course, from the rest of Universe's perspective, are we actually intelligent?

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Andy

Manager Ukweatherworld

Pluto to Charon:

I see, I see what you can't see...and it's an intelligent species!

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

I think given the immensity of the universe that life does exist elsewhere but ultimately no concrete projections can be made from a data set of 1 (life on Earth). Speculations using things like the Drake Equation and so forth cannot conclusively show that extraterretrial life must exist.

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Now while I might be amused by Cthulhians, I don't necessarily distrust them to carry out the functions of government. -- JayUtah

What's it like being a skeptic in the Middle East? Check out my blog.

Good point. To them we may be as bacteria are to us.

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I think nature's purpose it to survive, and in the case of humans intelligence helped us to survive. It see it as a little change here or there within our DNA (and a lot of time) that cause humans to be smart, just as birds can fly.

I don't think life is common, and intelligent life is even less common, but it surely exists out there. I imagine some planets with just animal like creatures, and some with animal and intelligent life, then there could be others with more then one intelligent life form roaming on it (that would be something)

Just remember how vast the universe is, and even if 1% or less of the planets have life, thats's still an insanely huge number!

Kind of off topic, but aren't there theories out htere, that there may have been several different intelligent species here on Earth, and one (us) of the species wiped the others out before they could become established

Well homo sapiens are presumed to have wiped out other humanoid species such as Neandrethals and other Homo species, such as those recently found "Hobbits", but I don't think there has been evidence for other extinct intelligent species not closely related to humans that we have wiped out (though we are on the road to wiping out dolphins).

(side note: there is debate as to whether Neandrethals are a separate species or a sub-species of homo sapiens)

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Now while I might be amused by Cthulhians, I don't necessarily distrust them to carry out the functions of government. -- JayUtah

What's it like being a skeptic in the Middle East? Check out my blog.