Are There Other Intelligent Civilizations Out There? Two Views on the Fermi Paradox
http://singularityhub.com/...her-intelligent-civilizations-out-there-two-views-on-the-fermi-paradox/
Scientists have now discovered a few thousand planets orbiting other stars and, based on these observations,
believe there may be as many as 8.8 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way alone.
Include stars smaller than the sun and that number increases to 40 billion potentially habitable Earth-like planets.
During a panel discussion on space exploration at Singularity University's Global Summit, Jill Tarter, the Bernard M. Oliver
chair at the SETI Institute, was asked to explain the Fermi paradox and her position on it. Her answer was pretty brilliant:
“The Fermi paradox can be summarized as: If there ever was, anywhere and anywhen, a technological civilization other than ours,
then in a time that is very short, they would obviously develop the ability for interstellar travel, and they would obviously
colonize the galaxy.
No matter what your model is, it would take place in a time that's short compared to the lifetime of the galaxy. But they’re not here.
Therefore, given the structure of the paradox, there can’t have been any technology anywhere and anywhen before us. We're the first.”
Tarter next pivoted into her stance on the paradox:
“That whole logical structure revolves around your ability to say they’re not here. And I don’t think we can say that. I don’t think
that we have explored even our own backyard—the solar system—well enough to rule out the possibility of alien technology being there.
I mean, we're really working very hard to find one kilometer rocks out there that might have our name on them. Littler things are much
harder to find.
So, I don't think that they're here abducting Aunt Alice off the streets of New York for salacious medical experiments. There's no evidence
for that. But we really haven't looked either physically or for signals. We have hardly begun our SETI search.
All that we’ve been able to do in 50 years is numerically equivalent to kind of scooping one eight-ounce glass out of the world’s oceans
and looking and saying, ‘Huh, well, no fish in there; I guess there are no fish in the ocean.’ That’s where we are.”