it would be purely human vanity to assume that if we were wiped off the face of this earth that some other animal would rise to fill the intellegence niche.

however, the question of extre terrestrial life existing at or beyond the levels of human intellegence is a different animal entirely. the universe has been around a great great deal longer than we have and given the vast amount of time available and the sheer number of planets on which intellegent life could have evolved it actually seems very improbable that nothing else is out that that meets or exceeds our level of intellegence.

that said, assuming we would recognize it if we say it or be capable of forming a meaningful relationship with it is also pure human vanity.

asking why isolated parts of earth haven't developed human-like intelligence assumes that isolation is 'good' for evolution - it's not...I think it's far more likely that the clash of many species in varying environments contributed more to our evolution than anything else....

Of course "big brains aren't the be-all and end all of evolution"... EVOLUTION IS NOT DIRECTED!

But making the argument that intelligence is not a predefined goal doesn't mean it doesn't happen elsewhere...

Wasn't Arthur C. Clarke himself who postulated that we actually may be alone? Or to qualify it using what Lineweaver suggests, that as far as we are concerned we're, that other intelligent life exists in such a state dissimilar to us they aren't here to us and we are not here to them?

I think it's intellectually dishonest to say that we're looking for intelligence- we're looking for human-like mentation. We use ourselves as the yardstick and definition of intelligence, which makes the word useless for comparison.

DNA is more intelligent than our minds are, at least in terms of computational complexity.

Humans are nothing more than really interesting chemistry with some limited ability for symbolic processing.

Planet of the Apes Theory? Hey dude... It aint 1975 go turn on your cable. I can't open my eyes without seeing some tv show ripping off that dudes book about a world without humans. The biggest evolutionary leap I saw was flying cats in NYC.

And any truly evolved person knows the final step in evolution is opening your eyes to the subtle brilliance of a Michael Bay film. You then reach total awareness.

@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: Is it like this?

Oooommmmmm
Oooommmmmm
Oooommmmmm
OoooMmmmmmG THAT'S FUCKIN AWESOME!

@92BuickLeSabre: Welcome to the club.

There's no reason why intelligence has to evolve. It could take the form of a giant crystal structure in space, like in that episode of TNG.

Wouldn't it make the most sense to start out looking for intelligence we could recognize (ie our own) instead of attempting to look for some form of intelligence that we would not understand even if we recognized it as being intelligent.

The ability of rational thinking that humans shows, is very usefull. Now If you say only on earth exist animals that can fly, I will laught, but If you say only one earth will born intelligent animals.. I will laught again.
Theres nothing special on intelligence, either, that ban the posibilitty to be repeated on other world ecosystem somewhere on the space.

... Crunchy thinks "who cares if there other capable species out in the cosmos, we can't even act civil towards each other here..." Being self-aware is not all that its cracked up to be, and that is what we are looking for. Self realization... cosmic man, I need a beer therefore I am.

Considering the state of the world today, can anyone truly say "human" intelligence is something that should be actively sought after?

@Citizen Kang: I saw a bumper sticker that I believe said it best.

"Beam me up Scotty. There's no intelligent life down here!!"

derrr

Has anyone actually claimed that evolution would try to develop intelligent species? Evolution favors specific traits only when they have something to do with survival.

The reason why lemurs are not super intelligent is that they have had a stable environment for a long time and no hard competition for food or much predators. They have had no push factors to develop intelligence.

Just about the only reason to have intelligence is to be able to adapt in rapidly chancing environment. It doesn't matter what planet you are on, if there are push factors for rapid adaptation, you may end up with intelligent species.

Increase in human ancestor intelligence may have been a fluke early on, but it has proven to be extremely beneficial trait for surviving ice ages and spreading the species allover the planet. As for the question of why there are no equally intelligent species on earth, the answer is that there was one (Neardentals), but they didn't survive competing with humans.

If humans were wiped out, other species would not automatically develop intelligence. But if they then had an additional push factor, e.g. fast chances in environment conditions, then some of then would start to get smarter.

For the same reason my kitchen sink hasn't developed intelligence: much smaller sample size.

It's hard to argue that human level intelligence is not an effective strategy for survival and as such, is unlikely that nature would never evolve it again. For creatures without fangs, venom, wings, great strength or reproductive prowess, we seem to be doing ok.

Also, the author's premise ignores the proven intelligence of species as diverse as primates, cetaceans and pachyderms.

As for the author's comment, "New Zealand...should be filled with super-intelligent giant birds," one should know that even chickens have a rudimentary language! (I swear. Go look it up.)

In just a few decades, we've had to come to terms with what it means to be human as we have witnessed animals behave in ways we only thought possible for humans: language, self-recognition, tool building, problem solving, pre-meditated murder, warfare - cultural aspects that define an individual and bespeak of intelligence. Let's not forget the cave paintings of neanderthals.

[You can even buy pictures painted by Michael the gorilla. You might know him better as Koko's brother. Yeah that Koko: the gorilla who knows sign language. Don't care for artwork by a gorilla? Go watch an elephant paint a self-portrait on youtube.]

I don't know how to properly adjust the intelligence variable of Drake's equation, but I do know that intelligence is too powerful a tool for evolution to give up on after just one try.

After all, even the saber toothed tiger has come and gone no less than three times thanks to specialization. Isn't intelligence at the very least considered a specialization?

Nice picture. When did Jeff Goldblum visit the White House?

I am of the opinion that "pure human vanity" is the only thing that would lead us to believe that we are the only creatures in the universe with our level of intelligence.

@Citizen Kang:

Yes.
I can't have a very interesting conversation with a cockroach, no matter how successful and well-adapted it is.
-Kle.

The best argument for being alone in the universe is a simple one. Let's make an unlikely assumption and say that there is at least one intelligent species in each galaxy in the universe. That is over 10^11 species (more than 100 billion). A vast number, to be sure, and perhaps an improbable one. Now, consider the distances between galaxies. The nearest galaxy, the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, is roughly 25 000 light years away. No problem - an intelligent species could easily have evolved thousands of years ago to the point where they were broadcasting powerful enough radio waves for us to receive in modern times, right? Well, sure, but there's no guarantee our nearest neighbour is occupied.

The 100th closest galaxy, NGC 247, is over 13 million light years away. Our sample size includes tens of billions, and the farthest universe from us could be over 80 billion light years away! The universe being a mere 13.7 billion years old, that means light produced by an alien species in that farthest galaxy will never reach us, unless we turn into cosmic beings that can survive heat death.

Intelligent life seems unlikely enough to arise that the sheer size of the universe will probably prevent us from ever knowing if anything is out there. Of course, I could be wrong, and there could be alien species throughout our very own galaxy. Even so, on the cosmic timeline, you have to consider the window of opportunity. The likelihood of a species developing in parallel with us is extremely low. The likelihood of them not having developed yet is quite high. The likelihood of them having developed impossibly far ahead of us is almost as high. A species like that would have made themselves known to use by now - if it was possible. We can scan the skies all we want, but we won't meet them.

Intelligence has tangible benefits - even basic tool mastery can enhance your survival chances massively. However, evolution is not directed, does not have any end goals in sight, and no form of being is superior to any other in an evolutionary sense. The only yardstick of 'good' and 'bad' in evolution is suitability to circumstances.

Therefore, however useful intelligence might be (And I argue that because it allows adaptation to almost any circumstances, it's pretty much as useful as it gets), there is no reason to suggest that it will necessarily evolve. The evolutionary process could simply not hit on that idea; the species in question could become extinct first, it could find a different solution, it could turn out to be a dead end in that situation, all kinds of things. There's no reason it should evolve, and no reason it shouldn't. Evolution simply is, like gravity.

@eirenicon: You assume that they WANT to contact us. I'm willing to bet that we can't comprehend the objectives and motives of a species half a billion years more advanced than we are.

Intelligence is profound disequilibrium. The problem with that is that intelligent life is like all other kinds of life, like fungus. We grow and grow and occupy as many niches as we can until we either succeed or fail at adapting to the poisons our disequilibrium produces. And we don't have a lot of time to adapt well. This means we have to become or produce a higher-order, equilibrium-minded intelligence quickly, or move into space quickly and learn to adapt to that environment even quicker. Intelligent pecies that achieve equilibrium and are consummate adaptors will survive and we may meet them if we meet these challenges as a "culture."

A better argument than the isolated continent one is that the Earth has had plenty of time to evolve intelligent species before we came along. Not just the SF "intelligent dinosaur", but other mammals and pre-dinosaur critters. As far as we know, nothing intelligent enough to invent technology evolved before us.

As for SETI, I'm a Fermi Paradox guy. If ET had evolved anywhere in the galaxy, anytime before 100 million years ago, it would have spread everywhere in the galaxy by now.

We're alone, at least in this neck of the universe.

er, i'm not sure about this.

maybe it's human vanity for some, but as i see it, we're not really that different from other apes. higher primates are capable of tool-use, symbolic thought, language... even basic self-identity and mimicking, which is the key foundational ability in society. would other apes become more intelligent and form more ordered social structures and technology if we suddenly vanished? well, i don't think it's necessarily US that's holding them back. it's a few key adaptations, none of which are particularly beneficial in the immediate sense and not easily selected for.

that's sort of the issue at the heart of this debate: that evolution is not "survival of the fittest" and a directed mechanism for creating man. it's "survival of all the but very least fit" and completely undirected. the level of intelligence a chimpanzee has is more than sufficient for its needs. it can learn tool and weapon use from its friends (and enemies). it can sufficiently communicate bartering relationships (bonobos often trade in sex). it can even abstract thought enough to be taught language, but this is of little use in the wild.

to produce human-like intelligence again in another ape species, there would have to other factors present: something to push them out of their present niche (which would not change if we vanished), or sexual selection for big heads, or something.

if anything, they are more likely to develop complex intelligence as a kind of evolutionary arms race with other ape species, as there is some evidence of this happening with early hominids. they had to outsmart each other, making intelligence a selected factor. in other words, other apes are more likely to develop intelligence with us around than they are without us. as we encroach on their habitats, we could find them needing more and more intelligence to keep out of our way, or adapt to us.

as for completely unrelated forms of life? no real reason why something CAN'T develop intelligence... just not enough good reasons for it. but given the size of our universe, i think it's a little early to say "we are alone." and perhaps a little, well, vain to think that we are somehow special.

@allnamesused: "As far as we know, nothing intelligent enough to invent technology evolved before us."

define technology. other ape species use tools and weapons, and are capable of picking up these ideas simply by watching. and FWIW, dinosaurs are quite intelligent.

@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: The best bumper that I ever saw said "Fuck off, Dickhead!!!". When I saw it about 20 years ago, I thought it was just an English thing, but now I realize it applies to %99.8 of all things. It applies to this intelligence/non-intelligence debate also. i.e. Who cares because we will just kill it anyways and ask questions later.

I think if we look at the history of life on earth, we can see that brain-power has increased over time on average. Certainly intelligence has given humanity an extremely significant edge over other creatures - to the point where 'survival of the fittest' no longer even applies to us.

It could well be the case though that intelligence is fleeting due to the laws of physics. It is extremely difficult to spread a species beyond a single planet, and as intelligence advances it also becomes extremely easy to destroy an entire planet. We may not have found anything with SETI because intelligence tends to snuff itself out within a few hundred years. Plugging into the Drake equation with such a short duration for intelligent civilization, and it gets unlikely we'll find it.

It seems much more likely to me that intelligence would result from evolution rather than the random combination of atoms into an intelligent mineral or similar. In fact, I suspect that looking at life on earth we can narrow it down more than that. Carnivores are almost always more intelligent than herbivores, so intelligent life elsewhere are likely to be at least omnivores like us. That also means they'll have a tendency towards violence and be more likely to wipe themselves out, or prove a threat to us if we meet face to face.

@DocGratis: "Of course "big brains aren't the be-all and end all of evolution"... EVOLUTION IS NOT DIRECTED!"

No need to shout. I don't think that's what he meant. He probably agrees with your assumption. I took it to mean that while our intelligence allowed us to be very successful, it would be very possible to be hugely successful without what we would recognize as intelligence (especially from this far away). I think we also expect technology to be part of the package, another unwarranted assumption.

@t3knomanser:

"""DNA is more intelligent than our minds are, at least in terms of computational complexity.

Humans are nothing more than really interesting chemistry with some limited ability for symbolic processing."""

I'm not sure what you mean about DNA. Computational complexity is not the same as intelligence; I don't know why you would say that. And DNA is a data structure, not an algorithm; from what admittedly little I know about it, it's a string of strings -- pretty simple as data structures go.

That said, the best known algorithms for doing things like parsing subsets of natural language grammars (we're nowhere near being able to handle real grammars), transforming trees, disambiguating incredibly noisy signals like speech, and so on, are hugely computationally complex. Like O(n^3) and worse. And yet our minds instantaneously handle richly structured, noisy inputs. So our ability for symbolic processing is anything but "limited".

@noncornbatant: Have your DNA call my DNA when Google can parse real grammars.

@Bloodboiler: "Has anyone actually claimed that evolution would try to develop intelligent species?"

Many people, whether they're conscious of it or not, subscribe to the "ladder theory" of evolution, that evolution carries us from lower to higher forms of life. A good example in popular culture is Star Trek's inherent notion that sentient beings are all destined to evolve into pure energy.

Most educated people are abstractly aware of a lack of directedness in evolution, but given the way that evolution is generally presented as a way that species get improved over time, it's a natural mistake to make.

Sorry if someone's already pointed this out, but some scientists argue that higher intelligence is in fact detrimental to the survival of a species. While humans are positively thriving (although you could argue that we are slowly "intelligencing" ourselves to death), the second and third most intelligent species are close to extinction.

Still, given the size of the universe and the time its been around, you could write something clever about monkeys and typewriters here.

Assumption 1: there is no evidence that there have ever been any intelligent species before man. Actually this is true if you believe that every ancient astronauat theorists is a kook and there3fore making up their evidence, also there are mysteries like the trilobite sandal that show the remote possibility of previous intelligence.
Assumption 2: the odds of intelligent life re occuring are so high that it is impossible to re occur. This is only true for small ampunts of attempts, if across the universe and time 50 billion attempts by worlds to create life happen then the chances of 2 worlds having intelligence life decreases by so much it becomes inevitable, to use rthe example most often used by dumb scientists the odds of winning the lottery might be 12 million to one for each individual person but when 20 million attempt it then someon will win.

I think what the guy is saying is that some are pursuing "alien" contact in the same way we pursue contacting humans, and that practice reveals beaucoup prejudices and assumptions about how we view "intelligent life."

I may have missed someone else say this, so I apologize if they did.

So SETI would stop doing actual work because a new theory says they might be wrong? I find that a poor reason to stop searching.

"Billy, your mother has a theory that you haven't had any luck in dating because there really doesn't exist the right girl for you. All your past dating bears this out as true. You should stop trying to date."

If there's a possibility that we might find what we're looking for with SETI, we should keep trying. That's a possibility. If we shut it down, that will reduce our chances of finding it to zero.