I’m now old enough to have progressed from a time when most people thought that intelligent aliens were visiting Earth to a time when most people think that there are no intelligent aliens in the visible universe.

It would be interesting to set up a graph of date verses distance for nearest plausible intelligent alien and nearest plausible unintelligent alien.

We can even, if we try, see that almost the whole of science as a search for and elimination of the possibility of aliens.

Meteorology has eliminated the possibility of intelligent aliens inhabiting the stratosphere.
Seismology has eliminated the possibility of intelligent aliens inhabiting the Earth’s deep interior.
First psychology and later brain imaging has eliminated the possibility of intelligent aliens taking over human minds.
Palaeontology has eliminated the possibility of intelligent aliens in the Earth’s past.
Genome mapping has eliminated the possibility of unintelligent aliens in the biosphere.

Until Luna 3, there was always the possibility of intelligent aliens on the far side of the Moon.
Until Venera 4, there was always the possibility of intelligent aliens on Venus.
Until Marina 4, there was always the possibility of intelligent aliens on Mars.

We might pooh-pooh these ideas now, but they were prevalent at the time.

Ditto other space missions to the solar system.

Project Blue Book was set up as a repository fro UFO sightings in 1952.
Project Ozma picked up what looked like a signal from a intelligent aliens on Epsilon Eridani in 1960.
Pulsars got their LGM (Little Green Men) designation in 1967.
GRB detections were kept secret from 1967 to 1973.
The Wow! signal dates to 1977.
seti@home had picked up some half dozen or so unexplainable bursts by about 2001.
The Lorimer burst comes from 2007.
Kepler’s alien megastructure comes from 2015.

And then there is the plod work of looking for unusual spectra from stars that has been going on continuously since Ejnar Hertzsprung plotted the absolute magnitude of stars against their colour in 1911.

And more recently looking for an infrared excess from galaxies.

mollwollfumble said:

I’m now old enough to have progressed from a time when most people thought that intelligent aliens were visiting Earth to a time when most people think that there are no intelligent aliens in the visible universe.

Do you have some numbers on that?

My guess would have been that the great majority of people do think that there are intelligent aliens in the visible universe, but that’s just based on my random readings.

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m now old enough to have progressed from a time when most people thought that intelligent aliens were visiting Earth to a time when most people think that there are no intelligent aliens in the visible universe.

Do you have some numbers on that?

My guess would have been that the great majority of people do think that there are intelligent aliens in the visible universe, but that’s just based on my random readings.

well someone once plugged the Drake Equation to get 1 and said that would be us

but if it was we’d probably get 0

SCIENCE said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m now old enough to have progressed from a time when most people thought that intelligent aliens were visiting Earth to a time when most people think that there are no intelligent aliens in the visible universe.

Do you have some numbers on that?

My guess would have been that the great majority of people do think that there are intelligent aliens in the visible universe, but that’s just based on my random readings.

well someone once plugged the Drake Equation to get 1 and said that would be us

but if it was we’d probably get 0

Well no.

The anthropic principle ensures that if there is only one intelligent lifeform in a given volume, then the lifeform considering the question is the one.

The Rev Dodgson said:

SCIENCE said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Do you have some numbers on that?

My guess would have been that the great majority of people do think that there are intelligent aliens in the visible universe, but that’s just based on my random readings.

well someone once plugged the Drake Equation to get 1 and said that would be us

but if it was we’d probably get 0

Well no.

The anthropic principle ensures that if there is only one intelligent lifeform in a given volume, then the lifeform considering the question is the one.

that person is probably dead so 0, unless they’re doing it the Spanish way in which case -1

mollwollfumble said:

I’m now old enough to have progressed from a time when most people thought that intelligent aliens were visiting Earth to a time when most people think that there are no intelligent aliens in the visible universe.

It would be interesting to set up a graph of date verses distance for nearest plausible intelligent alien and nearest plausible unintelligent alien.

So where would you put those possibilities now?

I would think the nearest star system with the possibility of a habitable planet for the first, and Venus or Mars for the second (whilst conceding that both are fairly unlikely).

SCIENCE said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

SCIENCE said:

well someone once plugged the Drake Equation to get 1 and said that would be us

but if it was we’d probably get 0

Well no.

The anthropic principle ensures that if there is only one intelligent lifeform in a given volume, then the lifeform considering the question is the one.

that person is probably dead so 0, unless they’re doing it the Spanish way in which case -1

I don’t follow.

I know I’m not dead, and I have good observational evidence that you aren’t, so that’s at least 2 examples of the possibly only intelligent lifeform in the VU who are considering the question and aren’t dead,

The Rev Dodgson said:

SCIENCE said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Well no.

The anthropic principle ensures that if there is only one intelligent lifeform in a given volume, then the lifeform considering the question is the one.

that person is probably dead so 0, unless they’re doing it the Spanish way in which case -1

I don’t follow.

I know I’m not dead, and I have good observational evidence that you aren’t, so that’s at least 2 examples of the possibly only intelligent lifeform in the VU who are considering the question and aren’t dead,

is considering questions sufficient evidence of intelligence

SCIENCE said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

SCIENCE said:

that person is probably dead so 0, unless they’re doing it the Spanish way in which case -1

I don’t follow.

I know I’m not dead, and I have good observational evidence that you aren’t, so that’s at least 2 examples of the possibly only intelligent lifeform in the VU who are considering the question and aren’t dead,

is considering questions sufficient evidence of intelligence

It is if you define intelligence as “having the ability to consider and discuss their own origins”.