<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
On 2015-09-24 18:04, scerir wrote:<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4ADE87190A1948C789BB9FB70C7BCC4A@serafinoPC"
type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=windows-1252">
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="MSHTML 11.00.9600.18015">
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11.5pt; FONT-FAMILY:
"Georgia",serif; COLOR: #333333"><font
face="Courier" size="3">"There may be billions of Earth-like
planets in our galaxy alone, and hundreds of billions of
other galaxies, similarly rich with the kind of environments
we know to be favorable for our sort of life. Unless we're a
lot more special than at present we have any reason to think
-- it seems likely that other technological civilizations
have reached this point and perhaps had these kind of
thoughts."</font></span></div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11.5pt; FONT-FAMILY:
"Georgia",serif; COLOR: #333333"></span> </div>
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11.5pt; FONT-FAMILY:
"Georgia",serif; COLOR: #333333"><span><font
color="#000000" face="Courier" size="3">### According to
Sharov and Gordon [1] life takes 10 billion years to
evolve to the level of complexity associated with humans.
Then we may be the first intelligent civilisation in our
galaxy. And this could be the reason why when we gaze into
space, we do not yet see signs of other intelligent
species. Or are they wrong [2]? Any idea? <br>
</font></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<br>
I certainly think they are wrong, and I have not met anybody in the
SETI or astrobiology community that takes them seriously. Their
approach to genome complexity is pretty much at variance with what
evolutionary biologists talk about, and then extrapolating it
linearly is the height of overconfidence. It is a bit like a certain
somewhat eminent astronomer I recently encountered who based a big
argument on genetic clocks always running at the same rate for all
genes; he was surprised when a biologist told him they actually run
at different speeds for fairly well understood reasons. <br>
<br>
This is on the same level as estimating the age of the Earth from
the saltiness of the oceans. <br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University</pre>
</body>
</html>