Alone in the cosmos?
Letter to the editor in today's NY Times:
Re “Aliens Must Be Out There,” by Farhad Manjoo:
It took Earth about 4.5 billion years to evolve. During that time there was only about one chance in, say, a quadrillion that we would evolve into intelligent beings. But here we are in this one chance looking out at the rest of the universe and wondering if there is anyone else like us.
How much longer will we be here: a thousand years, 10,000 years? There have been mass extinctions in the past. It will happen again. Many of our species are becoming extinct now.
What makes us think that there is some other civilization out there that we can communicate with that happens to be in existence now? The chances are one in a quadrillion.
But let’s say we heard from an alien out in space. And they are only 10,000 light-years away. They sent their message 10,000 years ago. So what?
Let us concentrate on our civilization and see if we can stop killing one another and destroying this little speck of Earth.
Art Cornell
Osterville, Mass.
Labels: Climate Change, History, Science
posted by Rob Anderson @ 1:25 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I've always felt the same. We need to get our spaceship in order, close all the open systems and if by chance we can do that then, most importantly, get along as long as we can. It will be a long shot if we can survive another million years given our path now.
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