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Humanity's ability to detect intelligent extraterrestrial life has existed for only a very brief period—from 1937 onwards, if the invention of the radio telescope is taken as the dividing line—and Homo sapiens is a geologically recent species. The whole period of modern human existence to date is a very brief period on a cosmological scale ...
This probability threshold, which could lie in the past or following human extinction, might work as a barrier to the evolution of intelligent life, or as a high probability of self-destruction. [ 1 ] [ 4 ] The main conclusion of this argument is that the easier it was for life to evolve to the present stage, the bleaker the future chances of ...
The evolution of human intelligence is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain and to the origin of language. The timeline of human evolution spans approximately seven million years, [ 1 ] from the separation of the genus Pan until the emergence of behavioral modernity by 50,000 years ago.
Timeline of evolution; human writing exists for only 0.000218% of Earth's history. While life on Earth is regarded to have spawned relatively early in the planet's history, the evolution from multicellular to intelligent organisms took around 800 million years. [58]
The firstborn hypothesis is a special case of the Hart–Tipler conjecture (the idea that the lack of evidence for interstellar probes is evidence that no intelligent life other than humanity exists in the universe) which asserts a time-dependent curve towards discovery. [1]
The anthropic principle, also known as the observation selection effect, is the hypothesis that the range of possible observations that could be made about the universe is limited by the fact that observations are only possible in the type of universe that is capable of developing intelligent life. Proponents of the anthropic principle argue ...
Evolution of Homo antecessor. The last members of Paranthropus die out. 1 Ma First coyotes. 810 ka First wolves: 600 ka Evolution of Homo heidelbergensis. 400 ka First polar bears. 350 ka Evolution of Neanderthals. 300 ka Gigantopithecus, a giant relative of the orangutan from Asia dies out. 250 ka Anatomically modern humans appear in Africa.
Ward and Brownlee argue that the universe is fundamentally hostile to complex life and that while microbial life may be common in the universe, complex intelligent life (like the evolution of biological complexity from simple life on Earth) requires an exceptionally unlikely set of circumstances, and therefore complex life is likely to be extremely rare.