Aliens need a lot motime to find us

On Jan 24, 2007, at 17:06 UTC, Jake wrote:

> I get the point, but that is assuming that evolution of the species
> and their technology is at a constant rate similar to our own.. I
> think this is inconceivable.. We were jump started by the extinction
> of the dinosaurs and a lot of our technology was discovered or is
> rooted by a discovery that was by accident. And even discovered and
> forgotten to be rediscovered 1000 years later.. There are so many
> variables that play into this..

Yes, exactly. All those variables mean that the time-to-civilization
will form a normal distribution, with a pretty hefty standard
deviation. (If these terms are unfamiliar, try Wikipedia, which I
think has a good introduction to them.)

> I can't understand how we can expect
> "they" should be like this or "they" should be like that.. When
> evolution don't work like that.. It's completely dependent on the
> events and changes that happen on and around the planet..

Evolution DOES work like that; because it's completely dependent on all
those random events, the result forms a normal distribution, like
almost anything else in nature. We can know things about normal
distributions, such as how likely it is for two members near the tail
of the distribution to be within a tiny fraction of a standard
deviation of each other. (Answer: not likely at all, which is the
whole point.)

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...