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This is possibly the most significant piece of news, ever: Mankind is quite probably the only example of intelligent life in the universe.
Detailed paper here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404.pdf
Quick summary:
Detailed paper here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404.pdf
Quick summary:
Sandberg / Drexler / Ord said:We have seen that a Fermi paradox arises if we combine a high and extremely confident prior for the number of civilizations in our galaxy with the absence of evidence for their existence. The high confidence that causes this clash typically results from applying a Drake-like model using point estimates for the parameters. These estimates, however, make implicit knowledge claims about processes (especially those connected with the origin of life) which are untenable given the current state of scientific knowledge.
When we take account of realistic uncertainty, replacing point estimates by probability distributions that reflect current scientific understanding, we find no reason to be highly confident that the galaxy (or observable universe) contains other civilizations, and thus no longer find our observations in conflict with our prior probabilities. We found qualitatively similar results through two different methods: using the authors’ assessments of current scientific knowledge bearing on key parameters, and using the divergent estimates of these parameters in the astrobiology literature as a proxy for current scientific uncertainty. When we update this prior in light of the Fermi observation, we find a substantial probability that we are alone in our galaxy, and perhaps even in our observable universe (53%–99.6% and 39%–85% respectively).
’Where are they?’ — probably extremely far away, and quite possibly beyond the cosmological horizon and forever unreachable.
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