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Extraterrestrial

Are we the earliest intelligent species ?

By T.K. Randall
October 10, 2012 · Comment icon

113 comments

Image Credit: NASA

Could humans be one of the earliest or even the first intelligent species to evolve in the universe ?

Most people believe that we will eventually find life elsewhere in the universe despite us having found no conclusive evidence of it so far. SETI has been hunting for signs of an advanced alien civilization for years but has to date come up with nothing. Could it be that intelligent life is simply too 'young' to be sufficiently widespread for contact to occur ? What if humans are one of the first ever intelligent species to exist in the universe ?

Arthur C Clarke once commented on this possibility by suggesting that in a trillion years advanced civilizations may look back on us and say "they knew the Universe when it was young."

Perhaps he was right.

There are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way and 90% are small enough and old enough to have planets in orbit. And only 10% of these stars were formed with enough heavy elements to have Earth-like planets with 2% of these in orbit within their star's habitable zone.

Source: Daily Galaxy | Comments (113)

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Recent comments on this story

#104 Posted by psyche101 12 years ago

I have too agree on the cave paintings psyche 101 ! I wonder in thirty thousand years what intelligent beings will think of our C/D disc ? or Jumbo tron`s Screens? Only time will tell. And Only what ever is around at said time will record the way they Look at what they See ! Maybe It will be by spitting onto a cliff side in upper N.Y ? HI D Good call mate, someone will no doubt believe we had a shrink ray. My niece spent quite some time gathering oral Australian Indigenous history, but Google stole some of it. The Uni took them to court, but had no luck against a giant like Google. They lost w... [More]

#105 Posted by TheLastLazyGun 12 years ago

Could humans be one of the earliest or even the first intelligent species to evolve in the universe ? Humans aren't a species. Our species is homo sapiens sapiens, just one of many human species which has existed on this planet. Could humans be one of the earliest or even the first intelligent species to evolve in the universe ? Humans aren't a species. Our species is homo sapiens sapiens, just one of many human species which has existed on this planet.

#106 Posted by TheLastLazyGun 12 years ago

I'm a Victorian.

#107 Posted by TheLastLazyGun 12 years ago

DONTEATUS, on 31 October 2012 - 10:06 PM, said:I have too agree on the cave paintings psyche 101 ! I wonder in thirty thousand years what intelligent beings will think of our C/D disc ? or Jumbo tron`s Screens? Only time will tell. And Only what ever is around at said time will record the way they Look at what they See ! Maybe It will be by spitting onto a cliff side in upper N.Y ? this is the world's oldest known cave art, done in Spain about 40,000 years ago. In fact, it may have been done by a different species of human - the Neanderthals.

#108 Posted by Slave2Fate 12 years ago

Humans aren't a species. Our species is homo sapiens sapiens, just one of many human species which has existed on this planet. Meh, semantics. We are the only existing species of homo sapien, tomAYto tomAHto. Regardless, our 'human heritage' was certainly one of the first to give rise to higher intelligence on Earth. Poorly worded or not it is still a valid question.

#109 Posted by Orcseeker 12 years ago

I do envy you, that must have been nothing less than fascinating. I would like to have more faith in the UN, but they do seem to be very much the toothless tiger. I think it will be more how you suggest, and that local cimmunities will have to band together to make other aware of such distasteful practises. After seeing things like that it made me think we really underestimate the people over there and what they are capable of with what they have. I'd agree with you on the UN as well. The countries are also realising the value of their plants and animals to them as well, such as a rare turtle ... [More]

#110 Posted by DONTEATUS 12 years ago

Well everyone have a good spit on the wall and see you all,ANd thanks for all the Fish !

#111 Posted by blind pew 12 years ago

I believe if we survive for another 500 to 1000 years we will become like the klingon race.

#112 Posted by Daniel Knight 12 years ago

When will you stupid scientologists stop pushing evolution atheist and cult nonsense? Shut up already and accept reality. God damn, grow up. "Dur I hate God some I'm gonna believe in evolution and big bangs and not admit the Bible is true duuuur." Shut up, what immaturity. http://eternian.wordpress.com/evidence

#113 Posted by The Silver Thong 12 years ago

If man were to die out tomorrow 65 million yrs from now would we be concidered primates because the new guys didn`t understand our backward ways so to speak. i think we are the first on this planet but again in 100 yrs nobody will know what Detroit Michigan was all about.

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