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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @11:44AM (1 child)
I'm old enough (59) that I remember being frustrated by the ever changing age of the Earth back in elementary school. We were still figuring it out, or at least, the best information was still working its way into the school systems back in the early 1960s. The Earth went from a few hundred million years old to maybe a billion, to 2 billion, to 4.3 billion years between 1st grade and middle school. (Texas school system.) Same thing for the age of the universe.
My point -- We assume the age of the solar system based on the age of the oldest rocks on Earth/Moon plus a few things we think we know about the evolution of stars. We could be wrong, or at least, a little wrong. A.C. Clarke was always good at being as scientifically accurate as possible. Remember he also said, "when an old and distinguished scientist says something is possible, he's probably right, but when he says something is impossible, he is very likely wrong." (I think he was referring to Einstein).
Anyway, the age of the oldest rocks only tell us how long ago the last time the Earth was destroyed (The moon forming event, for example.) It is possible that the Earth had many billions of years to evolve before that too-- IF our understanding of stellar evolution is in any way flawed.
If a Mars-sized object crashed into the Earth, like the moon forming event, all traces of us would be obliterated beyond detection except for the radio signals racing away at C. The "Earth" would start over from scratch.
Light of Other Days is a fascinating exploration of total loss of privacy (imagine political, business, bedroom, etc. meetings being spied upon by anyone, at will.) Well worth the read. It's also a foreshadowing of what's happening right now with our teenagers and their phones. On-line all the time, like cells in a hive-mind constantly connected...
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Tuesday August 15 2017, @01:00AM
We've dated enough meteorites and other material that did not originate on the Earth (or Moon) to know that the Earth formed with the rest of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. So we are still living on the "first" Earth, so to speak.