(May 14, 2014 at 6:25 pm)Chuck Wrote: If we take the amount of time that elasped on earth between the first single cell Prokaryotes and the first creature that can use fire and work metal to be roughly typical of how long this sort of things generally take in the universe, then we can expect a large number of earth like planets able to bear life would have evolved technological civilizations when the planet reaches 4-5 billion years old.
Based on our current understanding of cosmology, the Universe is 13.7 billion years old, and conditions would have existed to form earth like planets for at least 10 billion years in a typical galaxy like the Milky way.
This suggests the most advanced civilization would be roughly 5 billion years more advanced then we are. They would have been traveling in space when earth was still settling out of the dust of the primordial solar nebula.
Now ask yourself this, can you anticipate how a creature as much more advanced than us, as we are more advanced than the most primitive bacteria, would behave?
Going from Prokaryote to Eukaryote may be the nearly insurmountable hurdle. I wouldn't be surprised if we are the only intelligent species in the galaxy.
