Posted on 05/19/2004 12:46:40 PM PDT by Conservomax
Make that,
There can only be one human species, and there are plenty of other types of species on this planet, literally thousands, some that do have a limited degree of intelligence.
Let me clarify what I mean by an intelligent species. By intelligent species I mean one which is capable of making and using tools and communicating abstract thought.
That I believe is the condition of intelligence posited in the article.
rgds,
3/M
But they are. There's a possible political explanation for the Fermi Paradox. Every intelligent civilization has their bad eggs, who go on to push an inhibiting culture on the masses and cause extinction before a viable space traveling civilization can take root. On Earth, that inhibiting culture is Islam. They ain't just on Earth, folks, resistance is futile...
Actually there have been some instances where species on this planet have used tools, chimps and crows, however primitive.
As a matter of fact, we just saw on the discovery channel a week or so ago this crow literally bent a wire to use to stick down inside of bottle to hook food inside of the bottle. We watched in total shock. Again, very primitive, however the bird did make the tool and used it to successfully obtain the food to our total surprise. I understood crows were very intelligent, but this was a real eye opener to say the least.
Wow, Fermi asked a good question. I have trouble answering my kid's questions. Example: if a lot of water is aqua-blue colored, and snow is water, why is snow white and not blue?
Thanks.
Are you really a radioastronomer?
Okay, but do you expect the crow to colonize the universe?
LOL, maybe in several millions years, who knows. The point is there are other intelligent species on this planet besides humans, however very primitive. I for one, put my bet on life outside of earth, both intelligent and non intelligent, and I feel the universe is far to vast for anyone on this planet to say the chances of intelligent life out there are small, if at all. Just because we have no proof at this point, means little, IMO.
Are you arguing with the article's worth or that of the paradox which many of the world's top physicists have wrestled with for over 50 years?
I take it then that you don't believe humankind can ever explore another solar system. (because if we can then it is a process of time and reproduction etc....)
I concur.
Indeed. This is just one more reason that the Fermi Paradox is flawed.
Agreed. However, IMHO the distances alone will prevent an interstellar civilization.
Consider our own planet, we create extra-national organizations such as the UN and it becomes corrupted and ineffective. We've even tried international efforts on space projects and we have a clunky sinkhole of money in LEO that will never be completed as it was originally intended.
Agree also. Big sigh here. (And I even worked on the Space Station)
I haven't seen evidence that we're capable of mounting an expedition much past Mars. To think that we could not only colonize our own star system and then reach out on a large and continuous scale to propagate throughout the galaxy using a supranational organization (UN on steroids) is laughable.
I don't even seeing us going back to the moon any time soon, much less Mars or beyond. :-(
Maybe the best that could be attempted would be sporadic probes of a few nearby star systems, probably robotic, that would do a quick flyby or a temporary orbital surveillance of other star systems. It would be small scale, extremely rare, and very unlikely we would ever notice such a probe, even if it passed by during an age of technical sophistication of the target star system.
Would take lifetimes. Can a probe last this long? We have quite a time getting our probes just to the edge of our own solar system.
I just don't see that either. Evolution and Biogenesis are the best theories we have to date for life arising and diversifying on our planet.
The only thing I can think of is that the Drake Equation has a correlation to the Fermi Paradox by estimating the number of tool building species out there. However, the reciprocal does not exist IMHO. No matter what the Drake Equation estimates, it will not bolster the Fermi Paradox.
I am doing well, but extremely busy. Sigh! (eats into my freeping! LOL)
Separated by time and distance if they exist.
I have worked in that field, however, what I do for a living now is spacecraft/satellite engineering, design, control, and operations.
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