Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Editorials & Other Articles
Showing Original Post only (View all)Yes, There Have Been Aliens [View all]
(snip)
Or consider the average lifetime of a civilization. Humans have been using radio technology for only about 100 years. How much longer will our civilization last? A thousand more years? A hundred thousand more? Ten million more? If the average lifetime for a civilization is short, the galaxy is likely to be unpopulated most of the time. Once again, however, with only one example to draw from, its back to a battle between pessimists and optimists.
(snip)
In our recent paper, Professor Sullivan and I did this by shifting the focus of Drakes equation. Instead of asking how many civilizations currently exist, we asked what the probability is that ours is the only technological civilization that has ever appeared. By asking this question, we could bypass the factor about the average lifetime of a civilization. This left us with only three unknown factors, which we combined into one biotechnical probability: the likelihood of the creation of life, intelligent life and technological capacity.
You might assume this probability is low, and thus the chances remain small that another technological civilization arose. But what our calculation revealed is that even if this probability is assumed to be extremely low, the odds that we are not the first technological civilization are actually high. Specifically, unless the probability for evolving a civilization on a habitable-zone planet is less than one in 10 billion trillion, then we are not the first.
To give some context for that figure: In previous discussions of the Drake equation, a probability for civilizations to form of one in 10 billion per planet was considered highly pessimistic. According to our finding, even if you grant that level of pessimism, a trillion civilizations still would have appeared over the course of cosmic history.
(snip)
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/opinion/sunday/yes-there-have-been-aliens.html?WT.mc_id=2016-KWP-AUD_DEV&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVREMARK&kwp_0=168169&kwp_4=687656&kwp_1=350075&_r=0
This is a thought provoking analysis.
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
33 replies, 3838 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (42)
ReplyReply to this post
33 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
The problem is that we have NO rational basis for estimating any of the probabilities
struggle4progress
Jun 2016
#24
Evolution here on Earth and the sheer, overwhelming magnitude of other like conditions
Uncle Joe
Jun 2016
#25
What exactly is needed? Intermittently drying tidal pools? Or intermittently drying tidal pools
struggle4progress
Jun 2016
#27
With 100 billion or so galaxies, there's perhaps plenty of possibility for unimaginably strange
struggle4progress
Jun 2016
#31
We have a few data points. The ridiculously huge size of the known Universe. The fact that planets
Warren DeMontague
Jun 2016
#33