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"I'd say emergent, especially intelligent life would make the stats pages. Given the age of the universe and how long it has taken for Earth to evolve an intell
by mattheww 17y ago
"I'd say emergent, especially intelligent life would make the stats pages. Given the age of the universe and how long it has taken for Earth to evolve an intelligent lifeform I'd say it's even possible we are one of the first, if not THE first, intelligent lifeform"
a) That's one hell of a sampling bias.
b) The universe is roughly 14 billion years old, though stars only started forming about 12 billion years ago. The Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old. I don't see how you are able to draw that conclusion. Other factors that we are unable measure might allow us to make the conjecture if they take certain values.
Edit: formatting
- Retric 17y ago(Assuming life as we know it) Early stars needed to die before there was enough atoms above helium to form rocky planets. You need to stars close enough together so that the dead stars can be formed from these remnants. There is a narrow band of stars capable of having rocky planets let alone planets in the habitable zone. It's unlikely to form stable planetary orbits in binary star systems and stars must be small enough to last long enough to allow life to form. etc. There may be millions of planets capable of supporting life in the Milky Way, but I don't think many of them are much older than the earth.
- jodrellblank 17y ago"(Assuming life as we know it)" That's also one hell of a sampling bias!
- nopassrecover 17y agoYes but we can only work with the data we have.