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A University of Arkansas mathematician argues that species, such as ours, go extinct soon after attaining high levels of technology.
"I taught astronomy for 37 years," said Whitmire. "I used to tell my students that by statistics, we have to be the dumbest guys in the galaxy. After all we have only been technological for about 100 years while other civilizations could be more technologically advanced than us by millions or billions of years."
Recently, however, he's changed his mind. By applying a statistical concept called the principle of mediocrity – the idea that in the absence of any evidence to the contrary we should consider ourselves typical, rather than atypical – Whitmire has concluded that instead of lagging behind, our species may be average. That's not good news.
[...] The argument is based on two observations: We are the first technological species to evolve on Earth, and we are early in our technological development.
[...] By Whitmire's definition we became "technological" after the industrial revolution and the invention of radio, or roughly 100 years ago. According to the principle of mediocrity, a bell curve of the ages of all extant technological civilizations in the universe would put us in the middle 95 percent. In other words, technological civilizations that last millions of years, or longer, would be highly atypical. Since we are first, other typical technological civilizations should also be first. The principle of mediocrity allows no second acts. The implication is that once species become technological, they flame out and take the biosphere with them.
Source: The Implications of Cosmic Silence
For background, see: Fermi's Paradox and the Drake equation.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday August 13 2017, @11:42PM (3 children)
I mean, we are one and done. If it turns out we are two and half done, ok. 4 and a quarter done, you can start drawing conclusions.
But drawing conclusions from a complete lack of data, or ignoring the data? That's the Democrats way to the White house 2020.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @05:39AM (1 child)
No, the past is the data. One can make statistical inferences about the future based on the past. To use a simple example, even though the ancients didn't understand the mechanics of astronomy, they figured the sun came up every morning for at least hundreds of years, so that it's also likely to come up tomorrow morning again.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday August 14 2017, @06:15AM
That's sort of the opposite of the situation proposed in TFS.
The ancients had data.
We have only the absence of data.
Its a lot easier to make a prediction with data than it is to make a prediction without data.
The former is defined as history. The later is defined as fiction.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @05:59AM
The lack of data is, in this case, data itself.
We're already creating a substantial body of evidence of our existence when we hadn't even put a satellite in orbit until 1957, 60 years ago. Kind of insane sounding. It's not unreasonable to imagine we'll have self replicating robots exploring the universe within a century. That's very sci fi sounding but it's not all that complex. It's simply robust 3D printers capable of printing more 3D printers/propulsive systems from raw mineral input. Land on an asteroid or rocky body. Replicate itself 10 times over. And repeat ad infinitum. After just 10 generations you'd have 26 billion bots out exploring the universe in different directions. After 100 generations you'd 10^104 bots. Even with an extremely high loss ratio, you're talking about an absolutely enormous presence. Even in terms of squishy bodies, we will be imminently putting humans on Mars and ideally for indefinite periods of time. And that will be the first bounce of outward colonization which may well proceed on a similarly exponentially rate once habitating the formerly uninhabitable is mastered.
Imagine asking a human 1000 years ago to try to predict today - and technology is now accelerating vastly faster than it was then. Now image 10,000 years. All of these are just barely recognizable blips of time on the scales we're talking about. The fact that we see absolutely nothing is very relevant evidence. And I haven't even gotten into the relative lack of electromagnetic data as well. There are a variety of possible explanations for this, including the possibility that whatever is out there is intentionally disguising itself. However, I think the fact that we have not landed on and discovered an extinct civilization is itself not terribly relevant.
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, and in this particular case can be rather the opposite!