# Why doesn't ET call us? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 14, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634 "2008-11-14T00:38:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/141 "2008-11-18T01:44:38Z")
> [@Grendel\_s\_Father](#): > > It did on earth, so we’ve got a single data point that says yes, this “trend” exists. As Lemur866 pointed out, there’s no real reason for multicellular life to evolve in the first place. The fact is that eukaryotic life, let alone multicellular life, appears to be a bizarre symbiont, possibly of multiple organisms. Getting past the bacteria “stage” requires a very specific sequence of steps. Let alone the subsequent formation of complex multicellular life. Data points. Well, large hydrogen gas clouds don’t turn into grape jello. They do what the laws of physics tell them to do. We are proof of what the laws of physics can make. You seem to be thinking “unlikely.” I’m thinking “inevitable.” ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/142 "2008-11-18T01:48:54Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > I’m thinking “inevitable.” But grape jello is not inevitable. Neither are we. If any of countless factors had been different, we wouldn’t be here right now. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/143 "2008-11-18T02:05:45Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > But grape jello is not inevitable. Neither are we. If any of countless factors had been different, we wouldn’t be here right now. Sure, but that’s like saying it was an amazing coincidence one sperm made it out of millions to make you. What’s not an amazing coincidence, is that solar system\>planet\>life\>sperm exist. I dunno. I think it’s arrogant to say “RNA? I’ll grant you that. Mammals? Don’t be ridiculous!” What’s the diff? ---
**Author:** ![Grendel\_s\_Father](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grendel\_s\_Father](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grendel_s_Father)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/144 "2008-11-18T02:21:35Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Sure, but that’s like saying it was an amazing coincidence one sperm made it out of millions to make you. What’s not an amazing coincidence, is that solar system\>planet\>life\>sperm exist. > > I dunno. I think it’s arrogant to say “RNA? I’ll grant you that. Mammals? Don’t be ridiculous!” > > What’s the diff? One is the building block of the other, a building block that could just as easily turn out a nearly infinite number of alternate possibilities. It’s like saying “The wheel? I’ll grant you that. The 1987 Buick Regal? Don’t be ridiculous!” See the difference? ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/145 "2008-11-18T02:27:15Z")
> [@Grendel\_s\_Father](#): > > One is the building block of the other, a building block that could just as easily turn out a nearly infinite number of alternate possibilities. It’s like saying “The wheel? I’ll grant you that. The 1987 Buick Regal? Don’t be ridiculous!” > > See the difference? No, I don’t. Well, I do. I don’t expect to find 1987 Buick Regals out there, but I wouldn’t freak out if I found wheel-users. It kinda works. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/146 "2008-11-18T02:43:43Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > No, I don’t. Well, I do. I don’t expect to find 1987 Buick Regals out there, but I wouldn’t freak out if I found wheel-users. It kinda works. I hear Ford Prefects are good for hitch hiking out there. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/147 "2008-11-18T02:51:58Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > I think the bottom line issues of Time Scale and Distance Scale are very good answers for this sort of thing. We’ve only been technological for a very brief period and here we’re acting like a bunch of teenagers who have just hit puberty and think they’re adults now. (Read: Ok, we’re here! Why won’t anyone take me seriously! I’m an adult now! I know everything! C’mon!) > > If they were around, the answer comes down to WHY. Why bother making contact? What is to be gained? They don’t need our resources or our technology. They don’t NEED anything we have. Why bother making contact? Contact just gives away the only really valuable thing - Ideas. > > If they were out there, they could gain anything they really need from us simply by observation. Ideas, new ways of doing things, new solutions to old problems. Just watch our TV shows, monitor our media, and they’ll know how we do things. > > Because seriously, until we gain FTL travel - and they’d know about it well in advance by monitoring us - we pose no threat, offer nothing of value that they cannot gain without contact. XKCD put it nicely, “But seriously, there’s loads of intelligent life. It’s just not screaming constantly in all directions on the handful of frequencies we search.” They (if “they” exist) may have matured to the point they just don’t care anymore, or exhausted hope and stopped searching before we came about in the last hundred years or so, or maybe radio technology is lost and obsolete to them and they’re sending stuff out on a much more stable medium yet undetectable by us (and, by extension, they can’t contact us because they don’t use radio). I think the point is, there are too many variables to consider, especially since we have exactly one data point on how a technologically maturing civilization works, they could have entirely different priorities/a hive mind that only thinks of its own well being/a solitary animal that doesn’t seek social contact etc. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/148 "2008-11-18T03:07:02Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > a solitary animal that doesn’t seek social contact etc. Now that’s interesting. How would a society of solitary aliens progress? All of human technological progress comes from our ability to interact with each other and share discoveries. We stand on our ancestors shoulders. ---
**Author:** ![Grendel\_s\_Father](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grendel\_s\_Father](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grendel_s_Father)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/149 "2008-11-18T03:59:33Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Now that’s interesting. How would a society of solitary aliens progress? All of human technological progress comes from our ability to interact with each other and share discoveries. We stand on our ancestors shoulders. What does human technological progress have to do with it? Maybe an organism could evolve which is able to progress technologically on an individual basis, rather than as collective cultures. Why does intelligence necessarily lead to technology anyway? As a fundamentally tool-using animal, we’re clearly biased towards this kind of thinking. Is “intelligence” dependent on the ability to make/use tools? If so, we’re not just talking about finding extraterrestrial intelligence, we’re talking about finding extraterrestrial _humans_, essentially. Think _Star Trek_, where all the aliens are just humans with a few random quirks. ---
**Author:** ![seodoa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@seodoa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seodoa)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/150 "2008-11-18T04:10:43Z")
> [@Grendel\_s\_Father](#): > > Think _Star Trek_, where all the aliens are just humans with a few random quirks. …and have societies named and modelled suspiciously after human ones. I’m looking at _you_ Romulans. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/151 "2008-11-18T04:16:04Z")
Did anyone else read the title and imagine an E.T. skeleton with an arrow in it, and some dirty cowboy saying, ‘I’ll bet someone back on Earth is going, “Now why don’t he write?”’ ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/152 "2008-11-18T04:52:09Z")
> [@Grendel\_s\_Father](#): > > What does human technological progress have to do with it? Maybe an organism could evolve which is able to progress technologically on an individual basis, rather than as collective cultures. How would that even work? “Genetic” memory? Individuals would literally have to each reinvent the wheel themselves without some way of learning of the discoveries of previous individuals. > [@](#): > > Why does intelligence necessarily lead to technology anyway? As a fundamentally tool-using animal, we’re clearly biased towards this kind of thinking. Is “intelligence” dependent on the ability to make/use tools? Making/using tools shows an understanding of the underlying concepts of what the tools do and how they work. It shows cognitive reasoning. Sure it’s possible to be intelligent without using tools, but once you have the ability to understand how to manipulate things to your own advantage wouldn’t you be a fool not to? If you take out tool use we possibly already have another intelligent species. A whole family of them right in our own seas! Cetaceans! Too bad our brains aren’t wired right to learn languages that use tones instead of words. Going off on a hijack that’s another issue we may have with alien communication, should we establish it. They may have ideas about language that are completely unintelligible to us. > [@](#): > > If so, we’re not just talking about finding extraterrestrial intelligence, we’re talking about finding extraterrestrial _humans_, essentially. Think _Star Trek_, where all the aliens are just humans with a few random quirks. No we’re debating what intelligence is, or atleast how to define it. Dogs are more intelligent then you at smells. Bats make you look like a complete idiot at echo location. Compared to a chimp I’m a complete numbskull at tree climbing. When people say intelligent alien life the implied assumption is life that it’s intelligent in the way that lets them understand how the universe works. > [@seodoa](#): > > …and have societies named and modelled suspiciously after human ones. I’m looking at _you_ Romulans. :mad: I always figured that was a human name for them. That they had something else they called themselves. Either that or some Romulans tampered with Earth’s timeline. ---
**Author:** ![Grendel\_s\_Father](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grendel\_s\_Father](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grendel_s_Father)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/153 "2008-11-18T05:35:34Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > How would that even work? “Genetic” memory? Individuals would literally have to each reinvent the wheel themselves without some way of learning of the discoveries of previous individuals. Maybe just via instinct, like how a bird knows how to build a nest. Or what if they reproduced by budding, with all the memory of the parent organisms transmitted into the offspring? No genetic memory involved, just duplication of info. Or, maybe each would start from scratch, but because of some inherited impulse like instinct, progressed along roughly the same pathway of technological development, and live unbelievably long lifespans, so that for every few dozen individuals currently working out how to smelt iron, there’s one much older individual building carbon nanotubes. All this speculation is still probably way too limited by my own ingrained biases based on the fact that I’m one kind of intelligence trying to imagine a completely different kind. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/154 "2008-11-18T13:25:58Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > But I believe this is backwards. As I said earlier, life on Earth arose in only a few million or tens of millions of years after the formation of liquid water. Life on Earth has existed for 4 billion years, yet we’ve only had multicellular life for 650 million years, genus _Homo_ for two million years, \*Homo sapiens sapiens \*for 200,000 years, agriculture for 8,000 years, and the steam engine for 300 years. > > It seems to me that the scale of time between when an advance shows up compared to how long the advance has existed shows that these advances are not inevitable. Each advance required the previous advance before it could occur, but were not an inevitable consequence of the previous advance. > > If we define “intelligent life” on Earth as genus _Homo_, then life on Earth has existed for 4 billion years while intelligent life has only existed for 2 million. That means we’ve only had intelligent life on Earth for 1/2000th of the existance of life. If we define it as \*Homo sapiens sapiens \* then we’ve only had intelligent life for 1/20,000th of the existance of life. If we pretend that Earth is a typical planet, then it seems to me that we’d have to find 20,000 planets that could support life before we find one that has a species as intelligent as _Homo sapiens sapiens_. > > Of course, we have no good reason to suppose Earth is typical, so that number is kind of meaningless. But it illustrates that intelligent life is far from typical, even on planet Earth. Life has existed on Earth for unimaginable eons, intelligent life for an eyeblink. If aliens visited Earth at random periods throughout Earth’s history, they’d have only a 1 in 20,000 chance of sampling Earth at a period when intelligent life existed. Those aren’t very good odds. I’m not sure what you believed to be “backwards” since, in essence, you and I seem to be in agreement. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/155 "2008-11-18T14:22:17Z")
What if life originated, not on earth, but on another planet? if panspermia is real, then the galaxy ought to have tons of planets with life? ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/156 "2008-11-18T14:48:44Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > What if life originated, not on earth, but on another planet? if panspermia is real, then the galaxy ought to have tons of planets with life? Make’s sense to me. If our solar system is typical, and the evidence seems to be increasing that it is, then there are buhjillions of planets around those billions of stars, and many of them could have life. Do any of them have intelligent life? I dunno. Our molecules aren’t all that unique, though. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/157 "2008-11-18T15:04:16Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Make’s sense to me. If our solar system is typical, and the evidence seems to be increasing that it is, then there are buhjillions of planets around those billions of stars, and many of them could have life. But why does that follow? I don’t know how you can avoid an undistributed middle fallacy unless you can show that solar systems like ours will necessarily result in abiogenesis. Maybe the emergence of life had nothing to do with what our planet is like. And maybe the kind of life we know is not at all typical of what life is like elsewhere. It is okay in physics to state the premise, as Einstein did, that physical laws are everywhere the same. But there is no such law in biology. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/158 "2008-11-18T15:33:04Z")
That’s why looking for life on Mars is so important. IF there was life on Mars at some distant point in time it will pretty conclusively prove that life will originate and thrive in any conditions that allow for it. If life did originate on Mars (and/or Europa or a few other moons in the solar system) then I think one can extrapolate a LOT from that, and with some confidence postulate a lot of life out there. Even if intelligent life is a one in a trillion shot…well, if there was life on Mars or a few other moons in our solar system then there will BE trillions of possible life bearing planets out there in our galaxy alone. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/159 "2008-11-18T16:46:08Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > That’s why looking for life on Mars is so important. IF there was life on Mars at some distant point in time it will pretty conclusively prove that life will originate and thrive in any conditions that allow for it. If life did originate on Mars (and/or Europa or a few other moons in the solar system) then I think one can extrapolate a LOT from that, and with some confidence postulate a lot of life out there. Even if intelligent life is a one in a trillion shot…well, if there was life on Mars or a few other moons in our solar system then there will BE trillions of possible life bearing planets out there in our galaxy alone. The catch would to rule out the possibility that life on Earth, Mars, and Europa (if either of the latter two exists or existed) are of common origin. At least one meteorite of Martian orgin has been discovered on Earth; that suggests that panspermia can work on at least an interplanetary scale, even if it doesn’t work on an interstellar one. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634/160 "2008-11-18T17:01:17Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > But why does that follow? I don’t know how you can avoid an undistributed middle fallacy unless you can show that solar systems like ours will necessarily result in abiogenesis. Maybe the emergence of life had nothing to do with what our planet is like. And maybe the kind of life we know is not at all typical of what life is like elsewhere. > > It is okay in physics to state the premise, as Einstein did, that physical laws are everywhere the same. But there is no such law in biology. I don’t understand. Unless you believe in magic or God, physics exerts itself on biology just as it does on everything else. No, I can’t prove life exists elsewhere. If I could, you’d know my real life name by now. 😃 But I can’t presume life is that rare. It can be rare, but it can’t be so rare as we’re the only instance of it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-et-call-us/472634.md?page=9)