"K_h" <KHolmes@SX729.com> wrote in message 
news:QrCdnU-QgOvG6FXUnZ2dnUVZ_rmdnZ2d@giganews.com...

Fermi's paradox suggests that there are little or no other intelligent 
civilizations within the Milky Way galaxy.

No, that is not waht the Fermi paradox suggests.  Fermi only posed the 
question that, *given certain assumptions*, where is all the intelligent 
life?

On the other hand, intelligent life should exist on a substantial fraction 
of planets with life because natural selection broadly increases 
intelligence with time.  Here on the Earth, for example, numerous mammals 
have a high degree of intelligence and I suspect many of them could reach 
human intelligence with a few more million years of evolution.

This contradiction can be resolved if the origin of life is far harder 
than commonly believed.  That is, in the Drake equation, f_L should be far 
smaller than most people think it is.  Even on planets that are life 
friendly the formation of life should be extremely rare for the below 
reasons.

The paradox can be resolved in various ways.  One is that greatly advanced 
life forms would have goals and perspective vastly different and possibly 
incomprehensible to us.  See John W Campbell's old short story 
"Forgetfulness."

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