Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science

The Non-Prevalance of Humanoid Equivalents
phil — (archived)

Charles Lineweaver's paper addresses Carl Sagan's oft stated belief that the galaxy is populated by "functional equivalents of humans", beings capable of building radiotelescopes. The belief that were humans absent some other species would by some principle of evolution likely evolve intelligence and fill that slot, Lineweaver refers to as the "Planet of the Apes" hypothethis. Looking at evolutionary science (see the cited paper - quite readable) from a biologist's perspective, Lineweaver examines the evolutionary history of life on Earth, explaining the misrepresentations in the popular perspectives of the evolutionary tree, and concludes that the emergence of intelligence and maybe even multicellular life itself was an all time galactic fluke. We are alone. This pessimistic viewpoint is often expressed by evolutionary biologists but gets little play in the space press in contrast to the expressions of faith issued by physicists and astronomers.

Were this to be so, in my view it offers a grand opportunity for our species to evolve into a galactic multicellular life propagating role. Let's start with Mars.

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