For all those who argue: "that if life arose on Earth, then life throughout the universe must be common", comes this one:
Astrophysicists apply new logic to downplay the probability of extraterrestrial life
Quote:
David Spiegel and Edwin Turner of Princeton University have submitted a paper to arXiv that turns the Drake equation on its head. Instead of assuming that life would naturally evolve if conditions were similar to that found here on Earth, the two use Bayesian reasoning to show that just because we evolved in such conditions, doesn’t mean that the same occurrence would necessarily happen elsewhere; using evidence of our own existence doesn’t show anything they argue, other than that we are here.
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As Spiegel and Turner point out, basing our expectations of life existing on other planets, for no better reason that it exists here, is really only proof that were are more than capable of deceiving ourselves into thinking that things are much more likely than they really are.
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… at last ! … sensibility prevails ! …
Quote:
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The two argue that just because intelligent life occurred rather quickly here on Earth, once conditions were ripe, giving rise to the people we are today, that doesn’t mean it naturally would on another planet just like ours in another place in the universe.
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Of course, my favourite perspective on all this, (Chaos Theory), already directly supports this new statistical approach, and goes even further by underwriting the non-predictability of it all !
Interesting that this stuff is now starting to come out .. hot on the tail of NASA's reduced funding outlook.
Paper is here.
Reality rules dudes … (& dudettes) !
Cheers