Chance of life on other planets

You got to start somewhere. Usually holding tools is the place (after you can cooperate via language).

Come back in about 2 million years, long after humans have destroyed themselves, and see the more intelligent evolved dinosaurs (currently called "birds") working at their 3D computer terminals.

 

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Highly unlikely.

Humans have taken 6 or 7 million years to go from far more intelligent ancestors than birds are to get to where we are today.

http://i.livescience.com/images/060508_human_evolution_02.jpg

In a world where humans aren't around and some other species evolves to take our place it will most certainly take far far longer than 2 million years.

Of course I also don't believe we will destroy ourselves.

Arthur

 

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Yes 20 million is a better guess, but I was just trying to be funny and make the point that with time the dinosaurs could continue their evolution.

What might also happen is some "mad scientists" might help accelerate their evolution with chunks of DNA transfer etc. thinking that building a "biological robot" is smarter & quicker than a mechanical one. i.e. Give the birds a bigger brain, better claws to get his morning paper with etc. and it just gets out of control when the birds get organized and eat him and other humans. Admittedly microscopic creatures doing that eating of all humans is more probable.

 

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Billy T:Would they ever have evolved intelligence?

The dinosaurs existed for about 180 Million years & the last ones did not seem much (if any) smarter than the first ones.

Perhaps there was no evolutionary pressure on T-Rex since he was one of the biggest meanest ba**rds in the arena. Intelligence might have helped the smaller ones who were potential prey.

There are some more knowledgeable folks than I who think that the evolution of intelligence is a lucky fluke rather than an evolutionary inevitability, which is an opinion I have held since my college days in prehistoric times.

From the time of the first primate to one of the early human-like primates took about 50 million years. Only two primates (we & the Neandertals) developed far enough to be show signs of developing a technological culture.

The Neandertals did not make it & about 150,000 years ago, we almost became extinct.

 

Only if it helped them survive. I think it did for some of the smaller dinosaurs (and tiny mammals that we may have evolved from) that the carnivores ate. Perhaps that along with learning how to fly, i.e. to become what we now call birds, is why some birds are smart. (Very smart/ oz of brain. Certainly much higher on that normalized sale than any dog.)

Some birds, such as chicken are very dumb. Perhaps they, as dinosaurs, learned how to fly first and did not need (find useful) more intelligence. It is also possible, even likely, that every chicken I have had experience with is mentally damaged by man selecting for good egg laying or big breasts. I could extend that thought, but dare not as I don't want vicious attacks by the female posters here.

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I fully back Fraggel's post 204 statements about how smart some birds are but I have only a sample of one, a Cockatiel, part of the parrot family also.

Whether or not human level of intelligence is long term desirable is an open question IMHO. I suspect that some reptiles (if turtles and alligators are reptiles) will be here long after man is extinct.

 

Yes I suggest that was why all the chickens I have ever had any experience with were very stupid. I.e. man had selected them for egg laying or big breasts. I hinted at an extension of that "man selection effect" in another species in post 207 but will not repeat it again.

I spent my teenage years in West Virgina, went into the woods many times for various reasons. When squirrel hunting, it is best to pick a comfortable spot and sit quietly in it, waiting for the squirrel to give you a clean shot. Only once did I see a wild turkey - there were plenty, but too smart to show themselves.

 

150,000? Don't you mean 70,000? What happened 150,000 years ago?

 

Ophiolite: It happened between about 195,000 years ago (shortly after Homo Sapiens first arose) & about 125,000 years ago.

Check August 2010 Scientific American.

Due to cold dry climate conditions, our ancestors declined to merely hundreds of breeding individuals. They lived in a small region at the southern tip of Africa. Conditions there were suitable, allowing them to survive by eating shell fish & edible plants growing in that region.

 

Sounds strange to me. If it is too cold and dry why at Southern tip of Africa? I would guess the Nile valley would be better for warmth, fresh water & food.

 

150,000 plus years ago, the Nile Valley & coasts of the Mediterranean might have been as habitable or more habitable than the coast of South Africa. It could be that our ancestors of 150,000 to 200,000 years ago had not yet migrated that far North.

 

Which is the east of africa isn't it? Either way, to be safe ''it was somewhere in africa'' eh?

 

if our ancestors existed in the congo in large numbers would we expect to find fossils there
and therefore the lack of fossils in the congo indicates that our ancestors werent there
or are we only finding fossils elsewhere because
that happens to be where they are easiest to find and most likely to survive?

 

The Congo is not conducive to the formation and survival of fossils.

 

Mod note, two of them actually ...

1. Discussions of Gliese 581c are in [thread=104329]this thread[/thread].

2. Discussions of the origins of humanity belong elsewhere (biology and genetics). This thread is going very far off topic.

 

Too awesome.....

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AP News

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have estimated the first cosmic census of planets in our galaxy and the numbers are astronomical: at least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way.

At least 500 million of those planets are in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold zone where life could exist. The numbers were extrapolated from the early results of NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope...
...And that's a minimum because these stars can have more than one planet and Kepler has yet to get a long enough glimpse to see planets that are further out from the star, like Earth...

...Borucki said the new calculations lead to worlds of questions about life elsewhere in the cosmos. "The next question is why haven't they visited us?"

And the answer? "I don't know," Borucki said.

Kepler Site

--We are not of interest? Then what is of interest?
--We are fledgling, and under a "nanny protectorate"?