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New study estimates the odds of life and intelligence emerging beyond our planet:
We know from the geological record that life started relatively quickly, as soon our planet's environment was stable enough to support it. We also know that the first multicellular organism, which eventually produced today's technological civilization, took far longer to evolve, approximately 4 billion years.
But despite knowing when life first appeared on Earth, scientists still do not understand how life occurred, which has important implications for the likelihood of finding life elsewhere in the universe.
In a new paper published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences today, David Kipping, an assistant professor in Columbia's Department of Astronomy, shows how an analysis using a statistical technique called Bayesian inference could shed light on how complex extraterrestrial life might evolve in alien worlds.
"The rapid emergence of life and the late evolution of humanity, in the context of the timeline of evolution, are certainly suggestive," Kipping said. "But in this study it's possible to actually quantify what the facts tell us."
To conduct his analysis, Kipping used the chronology of the earliest evidence for life and the evolution of humanity. He asked how often we would expect life and intelligence to re-emerge if Earth's history were to repeat, re-running the clock over and over again.
He framed the problem in terms of four possible answers: Life is common and often develops intelligence, life is rare but often develops intelligence, life is common and rarely develops intelligence and, finally, life is rare and rarely develops intelligence.
This method of Bayesian statistical inference—used to update the probability for a hypothesis as evidence or information becomes available—states prior beliefs about the system being modeled, which are then combined with data to cast probabilities of outcomes.
"The technique is akin to betting odds," Kipping said. "It encourages the repeated testing of new evidence against your position, in essence a positive feedback loop of refining your estimates of likelihood of an event."
From these four hypotheses, Kipping used Bayesian mathematical formulas to weigh the models against one another. "In Bayesian inference, prior probability distributions always need to be selected," Kipping said. "But a key result here is that when one compares the rare-life versus common-life scenarios, the common-life scenario is always at least nine times more likely than the rare one."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 21 2020, @03:24PM (7 children)
Fire doesn't have the ability to ask dumb questions. As to the second question, did the past happen, if it's not the past any more? Some of the most reprehensible and destructive human ideologies heavily used the idea that the past can be destroyed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @03:32PM (2 children)
I don't believe you, and am therefore issuing a damnatio memoriae upon you and this notion that one can eliminate the past shall fade away.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 21 2020, @05:45PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @10:10PM
The man without a grandiose sense of self-importance, is... is... like if a man is good [youtu.be].
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 21 2020, @04:45PM (3 children)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @08:12PM (2 children)
No, no it did not. :,-(
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 21 2020, @08:38PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @05:33AM
You're not here for the hunting are you?