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posted by mrpg on Sunday August 13 2017, @11:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the we-are-doomed dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday August 14 2017, @12:32AM (2 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday August 14 2017, @12:32AM (#553407) Journal

    You know you never use a car analogy right? They always suck! ;-)

    So the destination in your example is like the end of the world because for example, 20,000 nukes go off and it really fucks things up. So the guy who left ten hours early got to that destination first, and then stops emitting signs of travel (no exhaust, waste heat, no Beach Boys or DJWhatever blasting at 11, etc.). Or in the civilization example, no radio emissions. Then the next guy goes doing the some thing till he gets to the end of it all, and everything shuts down - no more emanations because the trip is over and done with.

    Lastly, in the age of the universe, 100 years or 50,000 years is rounding error. Obviously we will never know one way or the other in our lifetimes which is correct without a visitation from aliens -- It is all conjecture, both the idea that civilizations burn out and the idea that they don't and we're just first or something like that, so it seems unwarranted to be quite so dismissive.

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  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday August 14 2017, @02:50PM (1 child)

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Monday August 14 2017, @02:50PM (#553691) Homepage Journal

    It's possible, maybe likely, that life is rare in the universe. Maybe only one in fifty galaxies have a planet that has produced life. If that was the case we would never have proof of their existence.

    It's also possible that we're the first.

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org