Every time someone talks about aliens, it is always assumed that they are more advanced than we are.?

Question

Can someone please explain to me in layman's terms why it isn't equally likely that there may be extraterrestrial cultures that are behind us?

Answer 1

If you follow eveolution, humans have only had the current form for a couple million years. Take into account just how old the universe is (well over 6 billion years old), how old OUR planet is (4.6 million years old), and how much stuff there is out there in the universe, it's highly likely that there is life out there.

However, in layman's terms, it's usually assumed any alien society out there is more advanced than we are because they would have had more time to evolve than we have. It's just as likely that they'll be as advanced as we are, or even less so. Depends on your point of view, I guess. Also, no one said it had to be life as WE know it, just life.

There's something called the Drake equation, and while there's no RIGHT answer, it's rather handy.

N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL
The equation can really be looked at as a number of questions:

N* represents the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy
Question: How many stars are in the Milky Way Galaxy?
Answer: Current estimates are 100 billion.
fp is the fraction of stars that have planets around them
Question: What percentage of stars have planetary systems?
Answer: Current estimates range from 20% to 50%.
ne is the number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life
Question: For each star that does have a planetary system, how many planets are capable of sustaining life?
Answer: Current estimates range from 1 to 5.
fl is the fraction of planets in ne where life evolves
Question: On what percentage of the planets that are capable of sustaining life does life actually evolve?
Answer: Current estimates range from 100% (where life can evolve it will) down to close to 0%.
fi is the fraction of fl where intelligent life evolves
Question: On the planets where life does evolve, what percentage evolves intelligent life?
Answer: Estimates range from 100% (intelligence is such a survival advantage that it will certainly evolve) down to near 0%.
fc is the fraction of fi that communicate
Question: What percentage of intelligent races have the means and the desire to communicate?
Answer: 10% to 20%
fL is fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live
Question: For each civilization that does communicate, for what fraction of the planet's life does the civilization survive?
Answer: This is the toughest of the questions. If we take Earth as an example, the expected lifetime of our Sun and the Earth is roughly 10 billion years. So far we've been communicating with radio waves for less than 100 years. How long will our civilization survive? Will we destroy ourselves in a few years like some predict or will we overcome our problems and survive for millennia? If we were destroyed tomorrow the answer to this question would be 1/100,000,000th. If we survive for 10,000 years the answer will be 1/1,000,000th.
When all of these variables are multiplied together when come up with:
N, the number of communicating civilizations in the galaxy.

The site has a calculator that you can use yourself. It gives you a series of numbers and you can take your pick from them to get your answer. You should check it out.

Answer 2

I believe that earthlings consider extraterrestrial beings more advanced because humanity, or at least its leaders, are not very intelligent.

Take a look at what is happening in the world today! Is this the way intelligent life conducts its affairs?

Answer 3

I think the assumption is that they would have to be more advance in order to cross inter-stellar space to visit us. But obviously, if there are other advanced lifeforms out there, yes, they may be much less advanced, just as there are more primitive tribes on earth.

I argue that even with more advanced beings, they would not necessarily be aggressive and want to wipe us out, as depicted in many sci-fi stories. After all, as we have got more civilised, we have become much more compassionate about the lower creatures on Earth – save the whales: save endangered : prevention of cruelty, etc. Extrapolating that, any super-intelligent beings would be more interested in studying us than wiping us out.

Recall the “prime directive” in Star Trek. Also, violent species would probably never make it to the level where they have inter-stellar travel, if they are always warring. Example: cut backs in our space programs because of funds required to sort out all the ailments in the world.

Basically, we are light-years away from being able to travel light-years.

Answer 4

Most of the sun-like stars (in our galaxy at least) are about a billion years older than the sun. They are of the proper metallicity but slightly older. The odds are heavily in favor of ETI being millions of years ahead of us rather than behind us.

A million years of technology should be able to make ETI immortal and capable of sending robotic space craft to investigate nearby stars, at the very least.

The odds are pretty much zero that we would be within a couple of hundred years of each other technologically.

Answer 5

That is certainly possible.

We may one day travel the stars and find only Cow like creature.

I don't know of a single cow that can add 1+2!

Answer 6

This same question was asked yesterday, here was my answer then:

That is one of the components of figuring out the odds of ET life.
A. The odds of a planet that can have life
B. The odds that life can get to a complex stage.
C. The odds that this life can become self-aware
D. THe odds that this life will become technologically advanced.
E. The odds that it will be at this stage at the exact same time we are.
F.The odds that maybe it has already become advanced and died out.

That's all figured in

Answer 7

I've been saying that all along, people believe sci-fi movies, where all aliens depicted in the movies are more advanced than us. I think other intelligent beings might actually be behind us.

Answer 8

It's not that what you say isn't equaly likely..

It's that any foregin life that is technologicly behind us is irrelevant. Not because we don't care, but because we can't get to them anyway and the time lenghts involved in raido transmissions makes communication unviable.

For instance, we know bacteria exists extraterrestrialy, but that doesn't do much for us, either.

Answer 9

If we encounter any aliens in the next century, it will be because they came and found us, since we don't have the technology to go out and find them. This would make them more advanced than us.

Answer 10

it fairly is perplexing to describe how extraterrestrial beings that are much less smart than human beings, and boast much less more advantageous technologies, could have the ability to interstellar commute, pondering the incontrovertible fact that human beings, inspite of all their intelligence and cutting-edge technologies, are no longer even on the edge of being able to this variety of feat.