# Have we reached the point when it is kooky to not believe in massive amounts of intelligent life having evolved throughout the universe? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 19, 2022, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972 "2022-08-19T23:30:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 30
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2025, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/587 "2025-11-18T12:53:50Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > He drops the solutions into three headings: They Are Here; They Exist but Have Not Yet Communicated; and They Don’t Exist. Does he say which solution he thinks is likelier? ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2025, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/588 "2025-11-19T19:12:36Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > Does he say which solution he thinks is likelier? The thing about the FP is that since we don’t even know if life exists anywhere else, anyone’s guess is as good as another. For example, Neil deGrasse Tyson believes that life in the universe is common because the fundamental ingredients for life are abundant throughout the cosmos, and the sheer size of the universe makes it unrealistic to think Earth is unique. But that is based on the assumption that it is easy for life to arise. A fact that neither he or anyone else knows. Other astrophysicists think we are likely alone. Your, or my guess, is as good as his or anyone else’s until we have more data. NdGT often suggests that if aliens exist and have the capability to visit Earth, they are likely so advanced that we would be insignificant or uninteresting to them. That’s his preferred solution to the FP. He frequently compares us to worms or ants. Others have made this same argument. I once heard him say, “When you are walking along and see a worm, you don’t stop and say, let me try to communicate with it”. But consider a couple of things, first if we found a worm on another planet, I’m guessing he would be VERY interested in it. Also, worms are not sapient or sophont. I think space fairing or technological aliens, would make an effort to contact a civilization like ours to share ideas. There is no evidence of civilizations that are millions of years old, therefor millions of times smarter than us. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2025, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/589 "2025-11-19T19:31:55Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > There is no evidence of civilizations that are millions of years old, therefor millions of times smarter than us. John Scalzi has a couple of rather interesting ideas in his latest book (Shattering Peace). One, a species (the Obin) which has been enhanced to have human-level intelligence but no ‘consciousness’ unless an added ‘harness’ is activated. And more directly relevent: a species that is millenia more advanced than us (the Consu) which still have a morality or drive which is based on competition and destruction. Unlike the Wise Old Elders of some other authors… ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2025, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/590 "2025-11-19T20:29:19Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > There is no evidence of civilizations that are millions of years old, therefor millions of times smarter than us. Another thing to consider is that we (or other aliens) might have reached a plateau in evolution (or soon will) . Crocodiles evolved from other earlier creatures, yet they have existed aprox 225 million years in more or less their current state and, as far as we can tell, haven’t gotten appreciably smarter during the last 200 million years. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2025, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/591 "2025-11-19T20:34:54Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Another thing to consider is that we (or other aliens) might have reached a plateau in evolution (or soon will) . Crocodiles evolved from other earlier creatures, yet they have existed aprox 225 million years in more or less their current state and, as far as we can tell, haven’t gotten appreciably smarter during the last 200 million years. Poul Anderson explored this idea in his novel ‘Brain Wave’… ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2025, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/592 "2025-11-19T20:41:41Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > NdGT often suggests that if aliens exist and have the capability to visit Earth, they are likely so advanced that we would be insignificant or uninteresting to them. That’s his preferred solution to the FP. He frequently compares us to worms or ants. Others have made this same argument. I once heard him say, “When you are walking along and see a worm, you don’t stop and say, let me try to communicate with it”. He’s said quite a few stupid things over the years, but this definitely **has** to be the stupidest, and in fact the most idiotic that any self-appointed science disseminator has _ever_ said. The difference is that we _already_ know that there are oodles of invertebrates just in the acre surrounding one’s residence, so stumbling over a snail in the morning wouldn’t be the least bit surprising. A planet chock full of life forms however by extreme contrast would be a rare, precious, and irreplacable phenomenon, a jewel glittering in the desert of space. The putative aliens would very much want to know, just for starters, how the world in question, its life forms, and its ecosystems survived the various filters over the eons; what their genetic code is; how their ecosystems are arranged, what the producers use to get energy from their host sun, etc. etc. etc. That all would go **quadruple** for any industrial society. Said interest wouldn’t just be out of pure curiosity since a whole host of questions directly appliciple to their homeworld would be of immense practical value. Every life-bearing world would be totally unique, unlike with our neighborly life forms where we would already have a good inkling of pretty much all aspects of their biology and where it would thus be highly unlikely we would find something interesting or different that we didn’t know before (which, of course, doesn’t stop biologist types like myself from examining them anyway). I already had a pretty low opinion of the bugger as it is, but this really takes the f. cake. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2025, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/593 "2025-11-19T20:48:23Z")
Tyson is trying to do an educational job of making science interesting and fun to everyone, I think. But I fear he is sometimes dumbing it down a bit TOO much to try to connect? ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2025, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/594 "2025-11-19T21:22:43Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > > [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > > > NdGT often suggests that if aliens exist and have the capability to visit Earth, they are likely so advanced that we would be insignificant or uninteresting to them. That’s his preferred solution to the FP. He frequently compares us to worms or ants. Others have made this same argument. I once heard him say, “When you are walking along and see a worm, you don’t stop and say, let me try to communicate with it”. > > He’s said quite a few stupid things over the years, but this definitely **has** to be the stupidest, and in fact the most idiotic that any self-appointed science disseminator has _ever_ said. The difference is that we _already_ know that there are oodles of invertebrates just in the acre surrounding one’s residence, so stumbling over a snail in the morning wouldn’t be the least bit surprising. A planet chock full of life forms however by extreme contrast would be a rare, precious, and irreplacable phenomenon, a jewel glittering in the desert of space. The putative aliens would very much want to know, just for starters, how the world in question, its life forms, and its ecosystems survived the various filters over the eons; what their genetic code is; how their ecosystems are arranged, what the producers use to get energy from their host sun, etc. etc. etc. That all would go **quadruple** for any industrial society. Said interest wouldn’t just be out of pure curiosity since a whole host of questions directly appliciple to their homeworld would be of immense practical value. > > Every life-bearing world would be totally unique, unlike with our neighborly life forms where we would already have a good inkling of pretty much all aspects of their biology and where it would thus be highly unlikely we would find something interesting or different that we didn’t know before (which, of course, doesn’t stop biologist types like myself from examining them anyway). This. Being technologically primitive in comparison wouldn’t be a reason for aliens to find us boring or uninteresting. Just think of numerous threads on this board about what some famous historical person, or even just the average person from some other time period, would think about our present day. There’s a lot we can say about (insert historical person of note), but “I think they’re boring because they didn’t have an iPhone to watch TikTok” isn’t one. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2025, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/595 "2025-11-19T22:08:01Z")
Science is evidence based. So far we have evidence and an example of **one** intelligent, technlogical, species capable of even getting off their home planet, that is us. **One.** Billions and billions is just Sagan BS. The odds are, is just gambling, go to Vegas. Facts. The facts remain that we have no evidence that we are not in fact alone. The simplest answer to any problem, once all the facts are known, is usually the correct answer. Occams Razor. And that answer is we are the only ones. Everybody hates that answer and refuses to even think and it, but that is the truth based on all of the facts we know so far. Nobody is hiding. No zoo, no dark forest, no anything. There isn’t anyone else out there. Such things as Star Trek have polluted people’s thinking to the point that everyone assumes a galaxy teeming with, not just life, but intelligent, technological, spacefaring, life. Based on no evidence or facts at all. It remains ‘Kooky’ to believe othewise until something else happens. A day that may never come. We are the only ones. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2025, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/596 "2025-11-19T22:43:13Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > Everybody hates that answer and refuses to even think and it, but that is the truth based on all of the facts we know so far. Myself, I don’t hate it, I **LOVE** it. Means I don’t have to worry about the Borg, the Vogons, Species 8472, Dr. Chaotica, et al. arriving any time soon to scour the surface of our world, blow us up for a diverging diamond multidimensional interchange, eat us for supper, or enslave us. As in yes, I am fully aware of just how much Trek has biased people’s views on this topic (I say that as a big Trek fan for most of my life). But even then the Precursors biased things to happen that way, a scenario we have absolutely no business entertaining here. [I would however welcome an exploration of just how often a tech civ pops up if every solar system in a galaxy has been seeded in that way] ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2025, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/597 "2025-11-19T22:52:09Z")
nevermind. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/598 "2025-11-19T23:07:09Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > Nobody is hiding. No zoo, no dark forest, no anything. Agree. The silliest ones to me are the zoo hypothesis and the [Berserker Hypothesis.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker_hypothesis) Sillier still, and the one that makes me cringe to even write it out, is the Grabby Aliens solution. I honestly think that people that come up with all these kooky “solutions” are just trying to sell books. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2025, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/599 "2025-11-20T01:29:38Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > Does he say which solution he thinks is likelier? Since not a particle of evidence exists for any of them, he consistently finds them all unlikely or possible but unproven or unprovable. However, the explanation he says fits the facts we have is that we are alone. He goes through the Drake equation and uses it to computes an answer of one. He admits that the numbers he uses are mere conjectures, though. Anybody can use their own preferred numbers and come up with any answer they choose. He choose the ones that he prefers. That rather undercuts the point he makes elsewhere in the book that we should intelligently discuss and understand the choices, rather than forcing our opinions onto the universe. I found the previous discussion far more interesting than his weak conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2025, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/600 "2025-11-20T02:13:55Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Crocodiles evolved from other earlier creatures, yet they have existed aprox 225 million years in more or less their current state and, as far as we can tell, haven’t gotten appreciably smarter during the last 200 million years. This can happen when there is no survival benefit to further evolution, either physically or intellectually. Evidently crocodiles are perfectly adapted to their environment, but such cases of evolutionary plateauing are rare. But humans may be a special case because we’re protected by the technology we’ve developed, so the natural law of “survival of the fittest” may no longer be operative. At the same time, our intelligence is highly leveraged by scientific knowledge and education. Science and technology continue to advance in leaps and bounds by continually building on the accumulated knowledge of others. For that reason, I think there’s essentially no limit to how advanced our technology can become even if our brains are at an evolutionary plateau. And that’s not even considering the potential benefits of artificial superhuman intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2025, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/601 "2025-11-20T19:02:03Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > But humans may be a special case because we’re protected by the technology we’ve developed, so the natural law of “survival of the fittest” may no longer be operative. Humans might be a special case. For example, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that chimpanzees today are significantly more intelligent than they were three million years ago. Octopuses have also plateaued - but I think that is a product of their very short lifespan. It’s said that a year old octopus is as intelligent as a 3 year old human. Given longer lifespans they might evolve greater intelligence. So if humans are a special case, maybe evolving human-like intelligence is the great filter, or short lifespans are a GF ? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2025, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/602 "2025-11-20T20:53:28Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Another thing to consider is that we (or other aliens) might have reached a plateau in evolution (or soon will) . Crocodiles evolved from other earlier creatures, yet they have existed aprox 225 million years in more or less their current state and, as far as we can tell, haven’t gotten appreciably smarter during the last 200 million years It’s not really about evolving greater intelligence though. Sentient species advance by building on knowledge, not by evolving more smarts. And going forwards, there are lots of technologies such as AI and brain augmentation that can make vast differences in our ability to innovate in an infinitesimal time compared to patterns in reproduction. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/603 "2025-11-20T23:07:24Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > It’s not really about evolving greater intelligence though. Sentient species advance by building on knowledge, not by evolving more smarts. Not sure I agree with this. Chimpanzees are sentient but have not moved on to complex tools. I argue that it is our greater intellect that allow us build on knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2025, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/604 "2025-11-20T23:13:44Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > > [@Mijin](#): > > > > It’s not really about evolving greater intelligence though. Sentient species advance by building on knowledge, not by evolving more smarts. > > Not sure I agree with this. Chimpanzees are sentient but have not moved on to complex tools. I argue that it is our greater intellect that allow us build on knowledge.   No, I agree with @Mijin. There is a threshold where a species gains sufficient intelligence to record, promulgate, and build on previous knowledge. That makes all the difference, and it results in exponential leaps in technological advancement. We are the only species to have done this. As I said earlier, the key to technological advancement is building on the foundation of existing scientific knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2025, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/605 "2025-11-20T23:36:57Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > No, I agree with @Mijin. There is a threshold where a species gains sufficient intelligence to record, promulgate, and build on previous knowledge. How does that contradict what I said? > [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > maybe evolving human-like intelligence is the great filter It’s not just intelligence, it’s human-like intelligence that’s the breakover point. Mijin said that sentient species advance by building on knowledge. I gave an example of a sentient species that can’t (or hasn’t). Many species on earth have evolved greater and greater intellect, but only humans have reached the point where we can build on previous knowlegde. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2025, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/606 "2025-11-20T23:43:07Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Sillier still, and the one that makes me cringe to even write it out, is the Grabby Aliens solution. I’m not sure I’m understanding what this hypothesis is actually claiming. If it’s saying that Grabby Aliens have already dominated the universe, then we’re still left with the question of why we don’t detect them and how our solar system didn’t already get grabbed by them– the Fermi paradox itself. If it’s saying that we must be in the very early stages of intelligent life in our galaxy because otherwise Grabby Aliens **would** have preempted us, then this sounds a bit like a tautology; and again it doesn’t address the fact that we don’t know why starfaring intelligence couldn’t have emerged a billion years or more ago. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972.md?page=31)