Re: News: Is there anybody out there?

On Apr 25, 11:51 am, Anthony Campbell <a...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2008-04-24, dkomo <dkomo...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:





Anthony Campbell wrote:

On 2008-04-21, dkomo <dkomo...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Robert Karl Stonjek wrote:

Is there anybody out there?

Is there anybody out there? Probably not, according to a scientist from
the University of East Anglia.

A mathematical model produced by Prof Andrew Watson suggests that the
odds of finding new life on other Earth-like planets are low, given the
time it has taken for beings such as humans to evolve and the remaining
life span of the Earth.

An argument could be made that Earth throughout its history has not been
a very life friendly place.  From bombardment by asteroids to sporadic
spasms of hyper-volcanic activity spewing huge amounts of methane and
other greeenhouse gases into the atmosphere.  Solar luminosity
increasing by 30%.  Snowball earth.  The Permian, KT and many other mass
extinctions.  Periodic ice ages.  Drifting continents.

Throughout deep time it's been one thing or another -- Mother Earth
giving its living inhabitants a very rough time.  No wonder it's taken
billions of years to evolve intelligent life, and a rather unremarkable
example of such in humans.

This sad story does not necessarily have to be repeated in other solar
systems.  On halcyon planets it's possible that life goes from
abiogenesis to beings much more intelligent than us in a few hundred
million years.

I've often thought that this whole debate is based on the hidden
assumption that it's somehow the "purpose" of the universe to produce
intelligent life. Is this perhaps the last refuge of anthropocentrism,
the ultimate hubristic delusion? As J.B.S. Haldane remarked, if we look
at the reality of the situation it suggests that the main aim of
evolution is to produce beetles. It hardly seems that the goal is the
production of intelligence. The dinosaurs had 150 million years  to do
so but didn't take the opportunity.

I think the debate is based on the obvious fact that life on earth went
through a series of many progressions across enormous time spans before
it arrived at creatures with high intelligence.  If it had happened that
intelligence had developed right after the appearance of multicelluar
life, and that then, much later, jellyfish and snails came along, your
anthropocentric complaint might have a better basis.

It's precisely the "obvious fact  of progression" that I wanted to
query. Your argument is circular. In talking about "arriving at
creatures with high intelligence" you implicitly define "progress" as
the production of intelligent beings and then use the fact that we exist
as evidence for progression. Not everyone agrees that there has been
progress in evolution. I tend to agree with the late Stephen J. Gould
that if the tape of evolution were rerun it might lead to a different
endpoint. If the KT impact had not occurred, would the world still be
populated by dinosaurs?



I'm glad you brought this up. Tim Tyler, who inhabited this forum a
couple of years ago, is now over on comp.ai.philosophy pushing,
amongst other things, the "inevitiability of human life" and
intelligence, and using Simon Conway Morris as his "authority" ... to
wit: "Anyhow, Conway-Morris is the cannonical antidote to those who
think chance rules in evolution: ", etc...

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.ai.philosophy/browse_frm/thread/c70c6f2a9df28bbf
[starting about msg #32]

He's also pushing the idea that evolution is deterministic, based
upon ...
============
New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory: Evolution Not Random

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080118134531.htm

Evolution Is Deterministic, Not Random, Biologists Conclude From
Multi-species Study

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119123929.htm
=============

What's the opinion of this stuff, including Conway Morris, in the
science/evolution community? Sounds pretty much left field.





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Relevant Pages

  • Christof Koch
    ... Simpler Origin for Life" from earlier this year by Prof. Robert Shapiro, ... Life began with the appearance of the first RNA molecule. ... before proteins and DNA in the evolution of life. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Christof Koch
    ... Simpler Origin for Life" from earlier this year by Prof. Robert Shapiro, ... Life began with the appearance of the first RNA molecule. ... before proteins and DNA in the evolution of life. ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Christof Koch
    ... Simpler Origin for Life" from earlier this year by Prof. Robert Shapiro, ... Life began with the appearance of the first RNA molecule. ... before proteins and DNA in the evolution of life. ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Christof Koch
    ... Simpler Origin for Life" from earlier this year by Prof. Robert Shapiro, ... Life began with the appearance of the first RNA molecule. ... before proteins and DNA in the evolution of life. ...
    (talk.atheism)
  • Re: Atheists are the biggest fools on Earth
    ... We're talking about evolution, which is orthogonal. ... Science has shown that this is not the case. ... >>>to all life and explains everything. ... >>eukaryotes are related through a single common ancestor. ...
    (talk.origins)