Science Forums 2

[Boerseun]

Not IF, but WHEN (in my humble opinion) we encounter any form of ET life, we'll find that the best (technologically speaking) species any given planet harboring life came up with, is either far ahead of us, or far behind us. We've been here for a couple o'years, lemme tell ya. But only for the last fifty years or so have we really done justice to our minds, and our potential. For us to evolve in technological lockstep with another species is very remote.

But I see your point: For any given planet, why should intelligence be the ultimate result of evolution? The answer, quite simply, is that it's not. Intelligence is just a useful survival mechanism, playing in the same league as camouflage, a thick pelt in high latitudes, horns to fight with, etc. Lucky for us, we've got the intelligence as well as opposing thumbs. We can build stuff. Dolphins got the short end of the stick - brains with no way of using it. I sometimes wonder why we tend to attribute so much intelligence to dolphins. But that's besides the point. I think from a sample of a million planets harbouring life, chances are that you'll find 99% of them similar to Earth in Earth's first couple o' billion year's of life: Algae in shallow ponds and seas. No more.