"Smart aliens might not even live on Earthlike planets"

Article at MSNBC

Pronouncements like that that of Andrew Watson remind me of the scientists of the past who have 'proved' things like the following (all true examples): Atomic fission:impossible, Powered, heavier than air flight: impossible. Rocket travel to the Moon:impossible! Even for scientists and other 'experts', predicting what will one day be known to be true, or not, is a very risky business. Michael

"Smart aliens might not even live on Earthlike planets"

Article at MSNBC

Seems he has found how to get his 15 minutes....Seems a lot of scientists used to believe flying faster than sound was impossible also,...

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

Frank Drake himself has always conceded that the chances of intelligence evolving even if complex animal organisms do might very well be quite low.

Frankly, I don't find anything Watson said disagreeable. Indeed, I think his conclusions are perfectly in line with what all but the most optimistic have always assumed: Intelligence is likely rare.

" ... only on those rare planets on which complex creatures happen to evolve can there exist observers who ask questions about evolution and care about the answers."

Heck, we all agree that's true, don't we?

"so the total probability that intelligent life will emerge is quite low (less than 0.01 percent over 4 billion years)."

I think that's a very fair guess.
The guess I made in my Drake equation thread was 0.0001% (1 in 1 million).
Even with odds like 1 in 1 million, I arrived at an estimate of 252 individual intelligent, signaling civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. That ain't bad if you ask me.
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=46028

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that intelligence capable of developing technology comparable to mankind has only independently evolved a few hundred times in the Milky Way Galaxy...maybe even a few thousand.

Nevertheless, I am absolutely and completely convinced that any technologically-advanced alien civilization to which we are visible (ie; not obscured by by the central galactic bulge) is not only fully aware of Earth's existence at this very moment but *already knows* that our planet harbors life and has probably known this since before the first humans ever existed.

If that's the case, I think it's not unreasonable to assume that such a civilization might transmit a constant radio signal at Earth with the knowledge that intelligence might one day evolve or might already have evolved there, and that like them, the intelligent species would one day assume they are not alone and listen for such a signal.

Perhaps the signal there sending is a form of light/heat? That is how human intelligence developes isn't it? Perhaps thats more obvious and studying light emmitance at the Earths atmosphere may be the next clue?

Perhaps they open portals and gates for those who have learnt where and when?

Heck, seen enough films with the light beamed as the entrance of heaven, someone invented that, didn't they?

Ever herd of the syndrome S.A.D {Seasonal adverse disorder}.

Perhaps the signal there sending is a form of light/heat?

Using light is a good guess; SETI has done some optical searching;
http://www.seti.org/seti/projects/oseti/

"This is different," noted Drake. "We are looking for very brief but powerful pulses of laser light from other planetary systems... ,''.

Though, the research is a perhaps better attempt at cosmology development, the mechanism from which it is operating is crude.


My experience of Santa Cruz california {America} tells me the sky is not suited for such experiments and my experience with caltec tells me that funding is not sufficient {considering nasa's technology and the space budget}. Such research may help nasa learn when and which path is suitable for the launch/return of space shuttles giving the foam heat panels a better chance of 'not falling off'.
[Just a hint].



No disrespect meant, but, shouldn't we be, funding such experiments for the space station {considering the advantages of zero atmospheric cloud visuals}.
The 'new scientist' article page 12 '12th april' should help you organise the house of science.

Hey, I'm just a, dork.