This is Nick's second groundbreaking article in 3 years.

I was fascinated by Ilya's quick response with counter-arguments based on mechanical analysis. My own thinking took a completely different path.

I don't know whether or not it might not be possible for intelligent life to evolve in an all water environment. I seem to remember that current octopuses (octopi?) have evolved a limited intelligence: tool using, nest building, trap building. Arms and binocular vision make this possible, and I can't recall - do they train their young?

Mankind evolved in response to climate change and a changing environment - what kind of environmental stress in an all water environment might produce the same thing is octopuses? And man eats animals and vegetables - could octopi (octopuses) do the same? Do they already do so?

In an all water environment, energy production via oxidation is not possible, so that definetly is a big problem -

Of course, the only way of finding out
is with a search for extra-terrestrial radio frequency signals - and once the NEOs are found to some degree, a radar antenna based on the Moon could be used for this - With Earth's its much higher signal to noise ratio, doing the same thing from here is very, very difficult - which is why my proposal is better, Part 5

EP