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FThere's always talk of aliens - endless talk of beings from otherFplanets flitting between the stars. It goes on and on unburdened byFanything remotely resembling rational thought on the matter. BecauseFif there WAS any intelligent thought on the subject it'd soon be0realised there just aren't any aliens out there.
FFirst up, I'd better define what I mean by aliens. Namely star-hoppingFbeings, be they green, little, or otherwise. I have no doubt there'sFlife on the planets of other stars as I think that given the rightFconditions it'll always develop as sure as ice will turn to water whenFthe temperature rises high enough. (Though it won't surprise me a bitFif the "Martian" fossils recently discovered on Antarctica turn out to+be just a Kaimanawa Wall from outer space.)
FWhat I'm saying is it doesn't necessarily follow that life onceFstarted and given suitably stable conditions for a few billion yearsFwill lead to a species advanced enough to be able to build spaceshipsFto leave their home planet and journey to the stars. There's two goodFreasons to think this. Namely, it's only happened once on Earth and,F(not a new thought but a much more compelling one), if it's happened
elsewhere, where are they?
FTo enlarge on the first reason, why hasn't another species in theFlife-time of our planet evolved to an advanced enough state to be ableFto produce your basic electric toothbrush, let alone spaceships? AFcommon reason given for the belief in aliens is that with all thoseFstars out there intelligent life just MUST have evolved? ThoseFexpounding this reason though never seem to ask themselves why, givenFthe diversity of life on Earth, hasn't more than one intelligent,Felectric toothbrush producing species evolved here. Could it be thatFour kind of intelligence is a total freak of nature and most likelyDWON'T happen even if given perfect conditions for billions of years?
FIgnoring intelligence for a moment, consider other features of theFAnimal Kingdom. (We'll ignore the Plant Kingdom as we're looking forFthe best-case chances of intelligence life occurring here, not theFworst.) Sight for instance is widely spread throughout the AnimalFKingdom. It's there in insects, fish, birds, reptiles, and, of course,Fin mammals. So is flight, though rather rarely in mammals and reptilesFand only just barely in fish. Communication? VERY widespread, if weFconsider communication to be the ability to signal to your own speciesFin a recognisable manner. (And remember that human speech is made upFof just a few score sounds.) The ability to manipulate objects withFsome level of dexterity? Well, birds can build nests as can insectsFwhile the dinosaurs had those little hand-like front-legs and I'veFseen a film of an octopus removing a cork from a bottle. So why isFintelligent life (meaning the ability to make an electric toothbrush)Fsingularly unique in the evolution of species on Earth? I suggest it'sFbecause the necessary myriad chance mutations (in the brain) needed toFevolve an intelligent species are so astronomically high that itFprobably won't happen on any suitable planet regardless of how manyFbillions of years you wait. (And you've only got until its star dies,
after all.)
FOkay I hear you saying, even if it only happens about once in everyFten thousand suitable planets, that could still mean thousands in theFMilky Way alone and countless billions in the rest of the universe.FWhich brings us to my second reason for there being no aliens, namely,
where are they?
FThe usual reason giving for us not having made contact yet is that theFEarth is lost amongst so many stars and there's no reason why aliensDshould have given us a second thought yet. Well that's just baloney.
FInstead of thinking of aliens coming to us turn it around and work outFhow long it'll take us to colonise our own galaxy. Meaning peopleFliving in every star system in the Milky Way that's worth botheringFwith. My estimate is it'll be less than a million years. You think
not? Well read on...
FFirst up, to populate the galaxy in a million years we'd need to breedFat the necessary rate to do so, right? So can we? Well at presentFwe're doubling our population every thirty-something years or whateverFthe number is so for a nice round figure for humankind's growth rateFlet's choose doubling the population every fifty years. The target? AFmillion people in each suitable star-system within a million years.FAnd how many "suitable" star-systems are out there? Well estimates forFthe number of stars in the Milky Way are from one to two hundredFthousand million so lets say there's one hundred thousand millionFstars we have to populate. How long is it going to take to put aFmillion people amongst each of them? Well, let's say, (to start with aFnice round figure), there's five thousand million people on Earth now.FThat means we only need to increase the population 20 times beforeCwe've enough people for each one of us to have our very own star toAourselves. So, (starting with a year with a nice round number and
counting in millions)...
2000 - 5000
2050 - 10000
2100 - 20000
2150 - 40000
2200 - 80000
2250 - 160000
FSo in less than 250 years our population could be large enough to putFone person in every suitable star-system in the galaxy. Now all weFhave to do is work out how long it'll take for each of thoseFone-person populations to reach a million by doubling their numberFevery fifty years. (What do you mean it's impossible? Haven't you
heard of cloning?) So...
2300 - 1
2350 - 2
2400 - 4
2450 - 8
2500 - 16
2550 - 32
2600 - 64
2650 - 128
2700 - 256
2750 - 512
2800 - 1024
2850 - 2048
2900 - 4096
2950 - 8192
3000 - 16384
3050 - 32768
3100 - 65536
3150 - 131072
3200 - 262144
3250 - 524288
3300 - 1048576
FHmm, seems we ought to be able to just manage it within a million
years, doesn't it?
FOkay, so breeding's never been a problem with humans. What aboutFgetting there? Could we actually make it to every second star in theFgalaxy in a million years? Well, the Milky Way's about one hundredFthousand light years across so, starting on one edge and travelling atFa mere one tenth the speed of light we could get to any star in theFgalaxy in a million years. No need for warp-drives, jump-gates,Fworm-holes or any other exotic method of space-travel. And is thereFanyone who doesn't doubt that barring a (most likely self-inflicted)Fextinction we won't be able to emigrate through space at speeds ofFmuch greater than a tenth the speed of light in the next thousand toFone hundred thousand years? And if that is possible, then we canFpopulate the galaxy in a million years, right? So wouldn't the firstFintelligent species in the galaxy be spread throughout it long beforeFthe second one decided to see what happened when they knocked two
stones together?
FSo where are they? Or all of them, if you believe those who reckon theFuniverse must be flooded with intelligent aliens. Hiding perhaps?FTrying to avoid us? Come now, if they're there then there's some aFbillion years more advanced than us, not to mention more evolved, andFwe'd hardly be a threat to them. (In fact most of them would be aFbillion years ahead of us given the age of the universe.) No people,<the most likely answer is we're the first - and we're alone.
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