Cosmic Silence

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Here is a Science Daily article about Cosmic Silence...the absence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170811185455.htm

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The universe is incomprehensibly vast, with billions of other planets circling billions of other stars. The potential for intelligent life to exist somewhere out there should be enormous.

So, where is everybody?

That's the Fermi paradox in a nutshell. Daniel Whitmire, a retired astrophysicist who teaches mathematics at the University of Arkansas, once thought the cosmic silence indicated we as a species lagged far behind.

"I taught astronomy for 37 years," said Whitmire. "I used to tell my students that by statistics, we have to be the dumbest guys in the galaxy. After all we have only been technological for about 100 years while other civilizations could be more technologically advanced than us by millions or billions of years."

Recently, however, he's changed his mind. By applying a statistical concept called the principle of mediocrity -- the idea that in the absence of any evidence to the contrary we should consider ourselves typical, rather than atypical -- Whitmire has concluded that instead of lagging behind, our species may be average. That's not good news.

In a paper published Aug. 3 in the International Journal of Astrobiology, Whitmire argues that if we are typical, it follows that species such as ours go extinct soon after attaining technological knowledge. (The paper is also available on Whitmire's website.)

By Whitmire's definition we became "technological" after the industrial revolution and the invention of radio, or roughly 100 years ago. According to the principle of mediocrity, a bell curve of the ages of all extant technological civilizations in the universe would put us in the middle 95 percent. In other words, technological civilizations that last millions of years, or longer, would be highly atypical. Since we are first, other typical technological civilizations should also be first. The principle of mediocrity allows no second acts. The implication is that once species become technological, they flame out and take the biosphere with them.

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Cheers.

Sriram

[trippymonkey]

Namaste Sriram bhai
Once again you throw in another gem !!!
Can the tiniest microbe on earth even begin to contemplate a human or even a germ? Never mind what you suggest here.

Nick

[ekim]

The implication is that once species become technological, they flame out and take the biosphere with them.

Sounds like Hell!

[Sriram]

Sounds like Hell!

I just saw the article  and thought it is interesting, but it really doesn't make much sense. The basis (the principle of mediocrity) on which he concludes that 'The implication is that once species become technological, they flame out and take the biosphere with them'.....doesn't make sense.

Just because we have been making a bit of a mess on earth is no reason to suppose that it will inevitable happen everywhere in the universe and that all life will thereafter vanish from that planet.   

Merely stating something as though its is a natural law of some kind, does not make it one.

[BeRational]

I just saw the article  and thought it is interesting, but it really doesn't make much sense. The basis (the principle of mediocrity) on which he concludes that 'The implication is that once species become technological, they flame out and take the biosphere with them'.....doesn't make sense.

Just because we have been making a bit of a mess on earth is no reason to suppose that it will inevitable happen everywhere in the universe and that all life will thereafter vanish from that planet.   

Merely stating something as though its is a natural law of some kind, does not make it one.

We have not been looking for very long,  nor have we been searching that many frequencies.

Space is quite big.

If you took a thimble full of water from the Pacific and did not find a fish, you should not conclude the Pacific contains no fish.

[torridon]

I just saw the article  and thought it is interesting, but it really doesn't make much sense. The basis (the principle of mediocrity) on which he concludes that 'The implication is that once species become technological, they flame out and take the biosphere with them'.....doesn't make sense.

Just because we have been making a bit of a mess on earth is no reason to suppose that it will inevitable happen everywhere in the universe and that all life will thereafter vanish from that planet.   

Merely stating something as though its is a natural law of some kind, does not make it one.

We only have a sample size of one (us) to go on, not much I agree.  But on balance I find his thinking plausible.  We didn't annihilate ourselves with the Cuban missile crisis, but hey, next time we might not get lucky.  Now we have two individuals in america and korea threatening each other with nuclear weapons, does this bode well for a species aspiring to longevity ?

[Sriram]

We only have a sample size of one (us) to go on, not much I agree.  But on balance I find his thinking plausible.  We didn't annihilate ourselves with the Cuban missile crisis, but hey, next time we might not get lucky.  Now we have two individuals in america and korea threatening each other with nuclear weapons, does this bode well for a species aspiring to longevity ?

I think the nuclear threat is vastly exaggerated. We have had two world wars. We already had two nuclear attacks 72 years ago, and we all (and Japan) are going on merrily.

Climate change is a problem but that by itself is unlikely to reduce the global population very significantly. 

I think a vast majority will survive and hopefully be wiser.