The Milky Way is probably full of dead civilizations

[Admin]

If there are other intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way, they are probably much closer than we are to the galactic center, and fairly young.

The Milky Way is probably full of dead civilizations : Read more

 

[sam85geo]

The speculation about extraterrestrial civilizations, existent or no longer existent seems to me to be an "abuse of the Drake Equation" akin to the medieval speculation about "Angels dancing on the head of a pin". I'm not saying don't look for extraterrestrials, just be circumspect and set funding priorities based upon our Earth bound needs for the survival/betterment of H. Sapiens within the environmental matrix needed for our continued existence. Given the vast distances between stars and the laws of physics/chemistry as currently understood, the cold reality is the high probability that we as a unique species are "alone" in the galaxy and will be so. N.B. I'm open to fact based contrary arguments; please tell me where I'm to cynical/missing data.

 

[rod]

The space.com report has the link to the paper. I did read the 21 page, arXiv paper at the link provided in the article. I note some comments here from that 21 page report. 'A Statistical Estimation of the Occurrence of Extraterrestrial Intelligence in the Milky Way Galaxy', https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.07902

My observation. The arXiv paper is 21 pages and very interesting. On page 3, ". Furthermore, three major components have remained largely untouched: 1) the probability of life in a pre-biotic condition, 2) different potential timescales for biological evolution, and 3) the probability of self-annihilation of complex life. The work presented herein will incorporate these important, yet often neglected components, in our galactic model."

The arXiv paper contains 17 references to "abiogenesis" and zero to "water". Other sources I use indicate that water, flowing water for example can disrupt abiogenesis. There are more than 4300 exoplanets confirmed now and abiogenesis at work on these exoplanets is not confirmed or ETIs as the paper references. The paper also contains 3 references to "extinction". In the conclusion portion of the paper, "4. Conclusions...The results of our model yield a range of possible quantities for intelligent life over time. We assert that the intelligent life will always be most abundant approximately 4 kpc from the galactic center, peaking at time around 8 Gyrs, decreasing monotonically from that peak point, and that a majority of potential intelligent life is still young. The exact number of the intelligent life estimated here is not the focus of our work; rather, it is instead the development of a statistical, comprehensive galactic picture tracing the potential growth propensity of intelligent life over a course of ~20 billion years."

The 21 page arXiv paper is intriguing. The civilization on Earth documented is very young by this new model for SETI and ETI searches. Other ETI civilizations are likely very old or extinct. However, showing the ETIs were there or are there today remains a challenge for testing and verification. The space.com article at the end does note "The paper has been submitted to a journal for publication and is awaiting peer review."

Models like this in astrobiology and astronomy can be used to define constraints on UFO visitors coming from the stars to Earth---Rod

 

[Trevize62]

The speculation about extraterrestrial civilizations, existent or no longer existent seems to me to be an "abuse of the Drake Equation" akin to the medieval speculation about "Angels dancing on the head of a pin". I'm not saying don't look for extraterrestrials, just be circumspect and set funding priorities based upon our Earth bound needs for the survival/betterment of H. Sapiens within the environmental matrix needed for our continued existence. Given the vast distances between stars and the laws of physics/chemistry as currently understood, the cold reality is the high probability that we as a unique species are "alone" in the galaxy and will be so. N.B. I'm open to fact based contrary arguments; please tell me where I'm to cynical/missing data.

I agree. In fact, if we apply the Occam's Razor to the Fermi Paradox, the simplest conclusion is that life is common in the universe, but sentient lifeforms are very rare, and probably we are the only one in the Milky Way, This is due to the casual nature of the biological evolution, whose possibilities of expression are almost infinite. There is no need to invoke a suicide tendency in sentient lifeforms.

P.S.: You are right also on the fact that alternative biochemistries (i.e silicon-based) could only exist in universes with different physical/chemical laws.

 

[Skyrora]

If an intelligent civilisation does arise does their new equation take into account spreading out from there home world to others. I guess if you can colonise your local star group you may already have developed faster than light travel or suspended anumation colony ships and so hopefully cancelled the major part of the paper dealing with self annihilation. Yes the travel distances are vast but the time scale in the paper is too. Also there is no mention of terraforming technology for your own solar system. Seems a bit light on all the factors if a layman like me can think of two others straight off the top of his head. Or is this paper just extra factors applied to the Drake equation?

 

[Trevize62]

I think the Drake equation is a nonsense, because statistic methods are not predictive of random events like the results of biological evolution and/or the development of civilizations.
If we talk of extraterrestrial life, we must refer only to biology, and, if we consider sentient species, psychology. The arise of a technological civilization is only a possibility, not an obligation, and is reasonable to suppose being extremely rare.

 

[sam85geo]

There seems to be a deeply felt human desire that extraterrestrials exist, (or have existed), can or may have visited Earth, are "out there" and can be contacted. Such has the aspects of a religious belief and since the subject is a scientific question, I don't understand why the scientific method is not scrupulously applied. Basically, the existence of extraterrestrials can be neither proven nor inferred nor implied from evidence. The net result seems to be recurrent Halloween like speculations readily used by the media. Perhaps, studying H. Sapiens' evolution and the environmental conditions on Earth that support all life, complex and otherwise, may provide a rational measure of chemically based life and the conditions for it's existence?