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The longevity of habitable planets and the development of intelligent life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2016

Fergus Simpson Open the ORCID record for Fergus Simpson [Opens in a new window]
Fergus Simpson*
Affiliation:
ICC, University of Barcelona, Marti i Franques 1, 08028, Barcelona, Spain
*
e-mail: fergus2@icc.ub.edu
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Abstract

Why did the emergence of our species require a timescale similar to the entire habitable period of our planet? Our late appearance has previously been interpreted by Carter (2008) as evidence that observers typically require a very long development time, implying that intelligent life is a rare occurrence. Here we present an alternative explanation, which simply asserts that many planets possess brief periods of habitability. We also propose that the rate-limiting step for the formation of observers is the enlargement of species from an initially microbial state. In this scenario, the development of intelligent life is a slow but almost inevitable process, greatly enhancing the prospects of future search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) experiments such as the Breakthrough Listen project.

Keywords

Bayesian statisticsevolutionhabitable planetsintelligent lifeSETI
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 266 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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