Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-w79xw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-27T03:28:38.875Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Fraction of life-bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges, fi, 1961 to the present

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2015

By
Lori Marino
Edited by
Douglas A. Vakoch  and
Matthew F. Dowd
Foreword by
Frank Drake
Douglas A. Vakoch
Affiliation:
SETI Institute, California
Matthew F. Dowd
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Frank Drake
Affiliation:
SETI Institute, California
Get access

Summary

Abstract

The question of how intelligence evolves on different planets is a central factor in the Drake Equation and informs the fields of bioastronomy, astrobiology, and SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence). In this chapter, I trace the history of our conceptions of intelligence through changes and growth in our understanding of brain evolution, genetics, and animal behavior, and present a modern view of intelligence that places human intelligence in an evolutionary context and linked to the multiple intelligences inhabiting this planet. Much of our current understanding of intelligence as an astrobiological question and, specifically, the nature and much-vaunted uniqueness of human intelligence, should be updated by modern knowledge and divested of outdated ideas such as the scala naturae, progressive evolution and teleology, and the anthropic principle. These notions continue to fuel a fundamental misconception of intelligence as a uniquely human phenomenon with little or no evolutionary or comparative context and, therefore, no way to understand its true biological nature. In this chapter, I will discuss these issues in detail and replace these outmoded notions with new information and insights about how and why intelligence evolves and the levels and distribution of intelligence across species on this planet. Modern understanding of intelligence shows that it is continuous across all animal life on Earth and that the human brain is embedded in the evolutionary web of primate brain evolution and contains the hallmarks of nervous-system evolution traced back to the first life forms on this planet. These updated ideas provide a biological context for understanding the mechanisms and range of intelligence on this planet and should therefore serve the critical purpose of revising notions of fi, leading to more productive outcomes for the study of the evolution of intelligence on this and other planets.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Drake Equation
Estimating the Prevalence of Extraterrestrial Life through the Ages
 , pp. 181 - 204
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adrio, Fatima, Anadón, Ramón, and Rodríguez-Moldes, Isabel. 2002. “Distribution of Tyrosine Hydroxylase (TH) and Dopamine Beta-hydrozylase (DBH) Immunoreactivity in the Central Nervous System of Two Shondrostean Fishes (Acipenser bneri and Huso huso).” Journal of Comparative Neurology 448: 280–97.Google Scholar
Allman, John M. 1999. Evolving Brains. New York: Scientific American Library.Google Scholar
Anderson, James R., and Gallup, Gordon G. Jr. 2011. “Which Primates Recognize Themselves in Mirrors?” PLoS Biology 9(3): e1001024.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arendt, Detlev, Denes, Alexandru S., Jékely, Gáspár, and Tessmar-Raible, Kristin. 2008. “The Evolution of Nervous System Centralization.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 363(1496): 1523–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benard, Julie, Stach, Silke, and Giurfa, Martin.2006. “Categorization of Visual Stimuli in the Honey Bee, Apis mellifera.” Animal Cognition 9: 257–70.Google Scholar
Billings, Linda. 2011.“Fifty Years of Exo/astrobiology.” Available at http://doctorlinda.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/50-years-of-exoastrobiology/.Google Scholar
Bitterman, Morton E. 1996. “Comparative Analysis of Learning in Honeybees.” Learning and Behavior 24(2): 123–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, Cristof. 2012. Wild Cultures. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boysen, Sarah T., Berntson, Gary G., Shreyer, Traci A., and Quigley, Karen S.. 1993. “Processing of Ordinality and Transitivity by Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).” Journal of Comparative Psychology 107: 208–16.Google Scholar
Breuer, Thomas, Ndoundou-Hockemba, Mireille, and Fishlock, Vicki. 2005. “First Observation of Tool Use in Wild Gorillas.” PLoS Biology 3(11): e380.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, Culum. 2014. “Fish Intelligence, Sentience and Ethics.” Animal Cognition doi 10.1007/s10071-014-0761–0.Google Scholar
Burger, William C. 2002. Perfect Planet, Clever Species: How Unique Are We? New York: Prometheus Books.Google Scholar
Clayton, Nicola S., Dally, Joanna M., and Emery, Nathan J.. 2007. “Social Cognition by Food-Caching Corvids: The Western Scrub-Jay as a Natural Psychologist.” Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society B 362(1480): 507–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cocconi, Guiseppe, and Morrison, Philip. 1959. “Searching for Interstellar Communications.” Nature 184: 844–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conway Morris, Simon. 2003. Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Couzin, Iain D., Krause, Jens, James, Richard, Ruxton, Graeme D., and Franks, Nigel R.. 2002. “Collective Memory and Spatial Sorting in Animal Groups.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 218(1): 1–11.Google Scholar
Crowe, Michael J. 2008. The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, Antiquity to 1900: A Source Book. University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Dacke, Marie, and Srinivasan, Madyam. 2008. “Evidence for Counting in Insects.” Animal Cognition 4: 683–89.Google Scholar
Darling, David. 2014. “Drake Equation.” Available at www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/D/DrakeEq.html.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles. 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 1st ed. London: John Murray.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwin, Charles. 1871. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1st ed. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Dick, Steven J. 1998. Life on Other Worlds: The Twentieth-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dukas, Reuven. 2008. “Evolutionary Biology of Insect Learning.” Annual Review of Entomology 53: 145–60.Google Scholar
Finn, Julian, Tregenza, Tom, and Norman, Mark D.. 2009. “Defensive Tool Use in a Coconut-Carrying Octopus.” Current Biology 19(23): R1069–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorito, Graziano, and Scotto, Pietro. 1992. “Observational Learning in Octopus vulgaris.” Science 256: 545–46.Google Scholar
Friesen, W. Otto, and Kristan, William B.. 2008. “Leech Locomotion: Swimming, Crawling, and Decisions.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 17(6): 704–11.Google Scholar
Giurfa, Martin, et al. 2003. “The Effect of Cumulative Experience on the Use of Elemental and Configural Visual Discrimination Strategies in Honeybees.” Behavioral Brain Research 145: 161–69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Giurfa, Martin, Zhang, S., Jenett, A., Menzel, R., and Srinivasan, M. V.. 2001. “The Concepts of “Sameness” and “Difference” in an Insect.” Nature 410: 930–33.Google Scholar
Gosling, Samuel. 2008. “Personality in Nonhuman Animals.” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2(2): 985–1001.Google Scholar
Greenspan, Ralph J., and van Swinderen, Bruno. 2004. “Cognitive Consonance: Complex Brain Functions in the Fruit Fly and its Relatives.” Trends in Neurosciences 27(12): 707–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Held, Suzanne, Mendl, Michael, Devereux, Claire, and Byrne, Richard W.. 2000. “Social Tactics of Pigs in a Competitive Foraging Task: The ‘Informed Forager’ Paradigm.” Animal Behaviour 59: 569–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herman, Louis M. 2012. “Body and Self in Dolphins.” Consciousness and Cognition 21: 526–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Herman, L. M., Pack, Adam A., and Morrel-Samuels, Palmer. 1993. “Representational and Conceptual Skills of Dolphins.” In Language and Communication: A Comparative Perspective, ed. Roitblat, H. R., Herman, L. M., and Nachtigall, P., 403–42. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hochner, Binyamin, Shomrat, Tal, and Fiorito, Graziano. 2006. “The Octopus: A Model for a Comparative Analysis of the Evolution of Learning and Memory Mechanisms.” Biological Bulletin 210(3): 308–17.Google Scholar
Hunt, Gavin R., and Gray, Russell D.. 2003. “Diversification and Cumulative Evolution in New Caledonian Crow Tool Manufacture.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 270(1517): 867–74.Google Scholar
Inoue, Sana, and Matsuzawa, Tetsuro. 2007. “Working Memory of Numerals in Chimpanzees.” Current Biology 17(23): R1004–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jacobs, Dave K., Nakanishi, Nagayasu, Yuan, David, Camara, Anthony, Nichols, Scott A., and Hartenstein, Volker. 2007. “Evolution of Sensory Structures in Basal Metazoa.” Integrative and Comparative Biology 47: 712–23.Google Scholar
Kaminski, Julianne, Pitsch, Andrea, and Tomasello, Michael. 2013. “Dogs Steal in the Dark.” Animal Cognition 16: 385–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kandel, Eric R. 2001. “The Molecular Biology of Memory Storage: A Dialogue Between Genes and Synapses.” Science 294: 1030–38.Google Scholar
Kandel, Eric R. 2009. “The Biology of Memory: A Forty Year Perspective.” The Journal of Neuroscience 29(41): 12748–56.Google Scholar
Krutzen, Michael, Mann, Janet, Heithaus, Michael R., Connor, Richard C., Bejder, Lars, and Sherwin, William B.. 2005. “Cultural Transmission of Tool Use in Bottlenose Dolphins.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102(25): 8939–43.Google Scholar
Langridge, Elizabeth A., Sendova-Franks, Ana B., and Franks, Nigel R.. 2008. “How Experienced Individuals Contribute to an Improvement in Collective Performance in Ants.” Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 62: 447–56.Google Scholar
Leadbeater, Ellouise, and Chittka, Lars. 2009. “Bumble Bees Learn the Value of Social Cues through Experience.” Biology Letters 5: 310–12.Google Scholar
Lederberg, Joshua. 1960. “Exobiology: Approaches to Life beyond the Earth.” Science 132: 393–400.Google Scholar
Lyn, Heidi, Greenfield, Patricia M., Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue, Gillespie-Lynch, Kristen, and Hopkins, William D.. 2011. “Nonhuman Primates Do Declare! A Comparison of Declarative Symbol and Gesture Use in Two Children, Two Bonobos, and a Chimpanzee.” Language and Communication 31: 63–74.Google Scholar
Marino, Lori. 2002. “Convergence in Complex Cognitive Abilities in Cetaceans and Primates.” Brain, Behavior and Evolution 59: 21–32.Google Scholar
Marino, Lori. 2007. “Scala Natura.” In The Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships, ed. Bekoff, Marc, 220–24. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.Google Scholar
McCowan, Brenda, Marino, Lori, Vance, Erik, Walke, Leah, and Reiss, Diana. 2000. “Bubble Ring Play of Bottlenose Dolphins: Implications for Cognition.” Journal of Comparative Psychology 114: 98–106.Google Scholar
McGrew, W. C. 2011. “Pan symbolicus: A Cultural Primatologist's Viewpoint.” In Homo Symbolicus: The Dawn of Language, Imagination and Spirituality. Ed. Henshilwood, C. S. and d'Errico, F., 1–12, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Melis, Alicia P., Call, Josep, and Tomasello, Michael. 2006. “Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Conceal Visual and Auditory Information from Others.” Journal of Comparative Psychology 120(2): 154–62.Google Scholar
Messenger, John B. 1996. “Neurotransmitters of Cephalopods.” Invertebrate Neuroscience 2: 95–114.Google Scholar
Miller, Stanley L. 1953. “A Production of Amino Acids under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions.” Science 117: 528–29.Google Scholar
Miller, Stanley L., and Urey, Harold C.. 1959. “Organic Compound Synthesis on the Primitive Earth.” Science 130: 245–51.Google Scholar
Morse, Douglass H. 2000. “The Effect of Experience on the Hunting Success of Newly Emerged Spiderlings.” Animal Behavior 60(6): 827–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mulcahy, Nicholas, and Call, Josep. 2006. “How Great Apes Perform on a Modified Trap Tube Task.” Animal Cognition 9: 193–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nawroth, C., Ebersbach, M., and von Borell, E.. 2013. “Juvenile Domestic Pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) use Human-Given Cues in an Object Choice Task.” Animal Cognition 17: 701–13.Google Scholar
Oparin, Alexander I. 1924. The Origin of Life. Moscow: Moscow Worker.Google Scholar
Osvath, Mathias, and Osvath, Helena. 2008. “Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and Orangutan (Pongo abelii) Forethought: Self-Control and Pre-Experience in the Face of Future Tool-Use.” Animal Cognition 11: 661–74.Google Scholar
Pack, Adam A., and Herman, Louis M.. 1995. “Sensory Integration in the Bottlenose Dolphin: Immediate Recognition of Complex Shapes Across the Senses of Echolocation and Vision.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 98: 722–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Passino, Kevin M. 2010. “Honey Bee Swarm Cognition: Decision-Making Performance and Adaptation.” International Journal of Swarm Intelligence 1(2): 80–97.Google Scholar
Pepperberg, Irene M. 2002. The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Plotnik, Joshua M., and de Waal, Frans B. M.. 2014. “Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) Reassure Others in Distress. PeerJ 2: e278.Google Scholar
Plotnik, Joshua M., de Waal, Frans B. M., and Reiss, Diana. 2006. “Self-Recognition in an Asian Elephant.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103(45): 17052–57.Google Scholar
Prior, Helmut, Schwarz, Ariane, and Güntürkün, Onur. 2008. “Mirror-Induced Behavior in the Magpie (Pica pica): Evidence of Self-Recognition.” PLoS Biology 6(8): e202.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rankin, Catherine H. 2004. “Invertebrate Learning: What Can't a Worm Learn?” Current Biology 14: R617–18.Google Scholar
Reiss, Diana, and Marino, Lori. 2001. “Self-Recognition in the Bottlenose Dolphin: A Case of Cognitive Convergence.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98(10): 5937–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rendell, Luke E., and Whitehead, Hal. 2001. “Culture in Whales and Dolphins.” Behavioural and Brain Sciences 24: 309–24.Google Scholar
Rumbaugh, Duane M., Beran, Michael J., and Savage-Rumbaugh, E. Sue. 2003. “Language.” In Primate Psychology, ed. Maestripieri, D., 395–423. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Saigusa, Tetsu, Tero, Atsushi, Nakagaki, Toshiyuki, and Kuramoto, Yoshiki. 2008. “Ameobae Anticipate Periodic Events.” Physical Review Letters 100: 18101-1–4.Google Scholar
Sakarya, Onur, Armstrong, Kathryn A., Adamska, Maja, Adamski, Marcin, Wang, I-Fan, Tidor, Bruce, Degnan, Bernard M., Oakley, Todd H., and Kosik, Kenneth S.. 2007. “A Post-Synaptic Scaffold at the Origin of the Animal Kingdom.” PLoS One 2(6): e506.Google Scholar
Schwartzman, David, and Rickard, Lee J.. 1988. “Being Optimistic about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.” American Scientist 76(4): 364–69.Google Scholar
Sherwood, Chet C., Stimpson, Cheryl D., Raghanti, Mary Ann, Wildman, Derek E., Uddin, Monica, Grossman, Lawrence I., Goodman, Morris, Redmond, John C., Bonar, Christopher J., Erwin, Joseph M., and Hof, Patrick R.. 2006. “Evolution of Increased Glia–Neuron Ratios in the Human Frontal Cortex.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103: 13606–11.Google Scholar
Shettleworth, S. J. (2010). Cognition, Evolution and Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shulgina, Galina I. 2006. “Learning of Inhibition of Behavior in the Sea Star, Asterias rubens.” Comparative and Ontogenic Physiology 42(2): 161–65.Google Scholar
Smith, J. David, and Washburn, David A.. 2005. “Uncertainty Monitoring and Metacognition by Animals.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 14: 19–24.Google Scholar
Striedter, Georg F. 2005. Principles of Brain Evolution. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.Google Scholar
Taylor, Alex H., Hunt, Gavin R., Holzhaider, Jennifer C., and Gray, Russell D.. 2007. “Spontaneous Metatool Use by New Caledonian Crows.” Current Biology 17(17): 1504–7.Google Scholar
Tomonaga, Masaki, and Matsuzawa, Tetsuro. 2000. “Sequential Responding to Arabic Numerals with Wild Cards by the Chimpanzee.” Animal Cognition 3: 111.Google Scholar
Turlejski, Krzysztof. 1996. “Evolutionary Ancient Roles of Serotonin: Long-Lasting Regulation of Activity and Development.” Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis 56: 619–36.Google Scholar
Ward, Peter, and Brownlee, David. 2000. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Zilles, K., Armstrong, E., Moser, K. H., Schleicher, A., and Stephan, H.. 1989. “Gyrification in the Cerebral Cortex of Primates.” Brain, Behavior and Evolution 34(3): 143–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×