On thing I've thought about is this:

We may have overstated the ability of life AND intelligence to form.

Our star is a 3rd generation.  Until now, maybe there just wasn't
enough heavier elements around to build planets of a size conducive to
life.

Our planet is 4.5 billion years old.  Life has existed on it for 3.5
billion years.  Of that, 2.5 billion was devoted to single cell
organisms.  Only in the last billion years has complex life evolved.

Maybe the happy accident that lead to complex life doesn't occur very
often.

Even AFTER complex life evolved, intelligence didn't automatically
spring up.  Dinosaurs were around for hundreds of millions of years,
but there's been no evidence that any dinosaur species ever developed
an intelligence sufficient to develop technology. 

Maybe the universe is awash in life, but its mostly single celled
organisms.  On occasion, it evolves past that, but seldom develops
anything with an IQ above that of a gerbil or snake.

Perhaps it's frequently wiped out by radiation from nearby super
novas.  Or life begins, but the planet it's on looses its stable
orbit.

Of all the life on our planet today, or that has ever lived, we are
the only species to have developed enough to even build a mud hut.

Maybe humans are just freaks of nature.

Jeff Cantwell


On 5 Apr 2004 22:54:38 -0700, hobbitfan111@yahoo.com (Spooky Mulder)
wrote:

Thanks Jan. Interesting article. I hope it's wrong. :-)

Jeff Cantwell
Contract Programmer
Downtown Little Rock, AR
ICQ #19444448

NRA Life, Member ARPA, Libertarian
	[www.ARPA-Online.org]
	ARPA Director at Large
	NRA EVC - 2nd District