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Originally Posted by dyna mo
I don't disagree that the assumption that they are not here now could be the problem. We very well could already be colonized. But again, using Drake's equation, if it has happened once like that, then more than one microbe would have colonized more than 1 Earth-like planet just do to that huge #s. It doesn't make sense to me that life is easily replicated, due to the equation, but colonization only happens 1x with 1 planet. Not that it couldn't, the universe is a nutty place, anything goes.
But I'm not poo pooing the idea that they are here now, in fact, I think life here did come from something on an asteroid or comet, but I don't think that was planned, it was random. There's also some good math that shows life actually began around the time the universe did- 13 billion years ago, well before the Earth was formed. But again, random. Sartre was right!  |
Well what I was getting at is given the numbers I'd assume life is fairly common, but expecting it to reach space travel and mass colonization as an end goal is unrealistic. There are so many variables and needs that would be required that even with intelligent life it's an extremely narrow window that would want or need to achieve that end goal.
Just look at Earth for example only 2 countries have put men in space on their own. The US & Russia. Of those two only one has set foot on another hunk of rock. Then look at the reason we did it in the first place.. Had it not been for the cold war, we likely wouldn't have had a reason to push so hard to send men into space and then the moon. We did it out of competition and with out the competition would we have?
Meaning it's not just the random chances of life happening and then becoming intelligent, but then it's even more random of a chance that that life would actually get the ability or have the want to go into space, much less the natural resources on their planet to make it happen.