--The Economist
For scientists, that is one possible solution -- the most unsatisfying solution from a scientific point of view -- for the answer to the Big Question. Where Is Everybody?
The Milky Way galaxy, of which we are a part, consists of approximately 250 billion stars. Those stars we see in the sky at night are a small fraction of the Milky Way's bounty. But the Milky Way isn't the entire universe. The entire observable universe is estimated to contain from 200 billion to 2 trillion galaxies.
The physical laws of nature, so far as we know, apply to all these stars, all these galaxies, in the same way as they apply to Earth. Through natural processes, life evolved on Earth. Earth no doubt was fortunate to have certain environmental qualities that helped life to evolve. What are the odds that none of the billions of other galaxies, or the billions of stars within those galaxies, or the multitude of planets circling many of those stars had equally favorable qualities?
Exactly.
As the famous physicist Enrico Fermi pointed out in 1950, the night sky must be filled with other civilizations. And so, he asked, why don't we have any visitors? Or, as The Economist points out, today we could ask with even greater incredulity, why don't our instruments pick up any signals indicating that someone's trying to communicate with us? Or even random signals, like our own radio and TV stations emit, produced for the alien civilization's own internal purposes?
The Economist article suggests other solutions besides the "unique creation" hypothesis of Genesis. Maybe alien civilizations have taken a look at us and decided they prefer to leave us alone. Or, as someone hypothesized not too long ago, maybe billions of civilizations have evolved, but each one, having reached approximately our level of technical advancement, committed unintentional suicide -- nuclear war, global warming, etc.
It's certainly unlikely that the third planet from our medium sized star is somehow the most advanced of all civilizations in the universe, and that we're just waiting for our little brothers to learn how to use radio waves.
The point of The Economist's article is to publicize the conclusion of some astronomers at Penn State. They say we just haven't looked hard enough, and that it's too early to say that we won't discover those little green men later.
Maybe. Or maybe "intelligent life" may be far more diverse than we expect -- a state of affairs that science fiction has explored for generations. Maybe aliens are fairy-like creatures who become visible or invisible at will. Maybe they have developed telepathy and teleportation, and have no need for the electronic signals our scanners are seeking. In 1930, Olaf Stapledon wrote his sci fi masterpiece Last and First Men, presenting the various forms into which our own humanity might morph over the millennia.
Maybe species, once they reach about our level, do not destroy themselves, but cease being interested in technological development, including space travel. They control their populations and live simple but affluent lives filled with the joy of raising their own gardens and meeting friends at night at the pub for drinks.
When I was young, I would have had hopes that by now we would have either encountered friendly aliens, or we would have discovered why we hadn't or, perhaps, why we never would. As the years pass, I've now become resigned to the heavy probability that within my lifetime we'll never know more about "Fermi's Paradox" than we do at present. And I've become increasingly accepting of the realization that any such solution -- be it "unique creation" or "civilizations advanced to the level of telepathy" -- may still be fully consistent with the traditional Genesis account.
But I enjoy mulling over the possibilities, be they exciting or frightening, that may confront future generations. Which, I guess, is why we find science fiction so alluring.
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