The Rise And Fall Of The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond

Author:Jared Diamond
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: sci_biology
ISBN: 0091742684
Publisher: RADIUS
Published: 1990-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

ALONE IN A CROWDED UNIVERSE

While humans are unique among Earth's species, the enormous number of stars suggests that intelligent creatures like us must have evolved elsewhere in the universe. If so, why have we not been visited by their flying saucers? The insights that woodpeckers provide into the supposed inevitability of convergent evolution help us reassess the possibility that we are unique in the accessible universe as well as on Earth.

The next time you are outdoors on a clear night away from city lights, look up at the sky and get a sense of the myriads of stars. Next, find a pair of binoculars, train them on the Milky Way, and appreciate how many more stars escaped your naked eye. Then look at a photo of the Andromeda Nebula as seen through a powerful telescope to realize how enormous is the number of stars that escaped your binoculars as well.

Once all those numbers have sunk in, you will finally be ready to ask how humans could possibly be unique in the universe. How many civilizations of intelligent beings like ourselves must be out there, looking back at us? How long before we are in communication with them, before we visit them, or before we are visited?

On Earth, we certainly are unique. No other species possesses language, art, or agriculture of a complexity remotely approaching ours. No other species abuses drugs. But we have seen in the last four chapters that, for each of those human hallmarks, there are many animal precedents or even precursors. Accept for the moment the assumption that the universe contains innumerable other planets on which life evolved. Do not those considerations suggest that some other species on some other planets have also extended such widespread precursors as far as the level of our own intelligence, technical ability, and communication skills? While no other species on Earth is now wondering where else in the universe there exists intelligent life, such species must exist elsewhere. Alas, most human hallmarks lack effects detectable at a distance of many light-years. If there were creatures enjoying art or addicted to drugs on planets orbiting even the nearest stars, we would never know it. But fortunately there are two signs of intelligent beings elsewhere that might be detectable on Earth—space probes and radio signals. We ourselves are already becoming effective at sending out both, so surely other intelligent creatures have mastered the necessary skills. Where, then, are the expected flying saucers? This seems to me one of the greatest puzzles in all of science. Given the billions of stars, and given the abilities that we know did develop in our own species, we ought to be detecting flying saucers or at least radio signals. There is no question about there being billions of stars. What is there about the human species, then, that could explain the missing saucers? Could we really be unique not only on Earth, but also in the accessible universe? In this chapter I shall argue that we can

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