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It's not necessary to assume a single hard step to explain the rarity of intelligent life. Considerations about the late appearance of a technological civilizat
by Qem 2y ago
It's not necessary to assume a single hard step to explain the rarity of intelligent life. Considerations about the late appearance of a technological civilization on Earth point to between five and six hard steps from origin of life to us. Abiogenesis can account for one, oxygenation for another, and we still need to find another three or four more. See https://arxiv.org/pdf/0711.1985 https://arxiv.org/pdf/0711.1985
- marcosdumay 2y agoThat that paper is one (very good) explanation for the early and sudden appearance of life on Earth, despite it being presumed a rare phenomenon. But there are other possible explanations. About the Great Filter, in principle we can expect the probability of those things to vary by several orders of magnitude, so only one would qualify. All of them being equally unlikely is actually harder to explain than the alternative.