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All evidence says it's exceedingly rare. As far as we can tell, it's only emerged once in the entire 3.5 billion year history of life on Earth. On top of that,
by tbabb 9y ago
All evidence says it's exceedingly rare. As far as we can tell, it's only emerged once in the entire 3.5 billion year history of life on Earth. On top of that, Earth may be a very rare sample of planets that have intelligent life, among a far larger population of life bearing planets that don't ever give rise to it at all.
- jbattle 9y agoRavens, octopus, canids, dolphins - surely behind us in intelligence - but we aren't the only brainy lifeforms Earth has brought forth
- tbabb 9y agoSince "intelligence" is ill-defined and "consciousness" can't be measured, some disambiguate with the term "technological". Take what I said to mean that if you prefer. :) My point: If technological civilizations were common, we'd probably expect to have seen a few pop up in Earth's long history of life. Since it's only us, it's not likely to be more common than "one for every 3.5 billion years of life", and there's no bound how much rarer it could be than that.