A writer at The Conversation UK suggests that the recent discovery of a potentially earthlike "exoplanet," or planet orbiting another star than our sun, could actually be bad news for humanity.
The simplified version of his reasoning goes like this: If there are a lot of planets that support life and life usually builds to a form that is self-aware, reasoning and capable of searching the universe for other life like itself, then we should have heard something from one of those planets by now. Since we haven't, that means that one of those "ifs" is wrong: either there are not a lot of planets that can support life, or life doesn't tend to self-awareness or it doesn't develop the capability of searching through space for other life like itself. This is called the "Fermi paradox," or even more simply, "Where the heck is everybody?"
A potential reason such life doesn't develop that capability is that it's destroyed by natural calamities or it destroys itself. If that's the case, then the discovery of another planet with life and especially with technologically advanced life increases humanity's chances of being one of the disappeared everybodies that some other species is wondering where the heck they are.
It's also possible, of course, that there's another answer entirely and we've no idea what it is.
But that wouldn't make much of an article.
No comments:
Post a Comment