This item was published on the SETI League’s Public Discussion List - Date: Sun Apr 23 2000 - 20:14:51 PDT
Hello all. I have been hearing a great deal recently in the media from some SETI researchers, especially those of the persuasion that there are very few, if any, other intelligent species in the cosmos - at least our corner of it. This is in contrast to the notion that there should be thousands or tens of thousands of intelligences, based on various interpretations of the Drake Equation. One of the arguments for the "intelligence is rare" hypothesis has been that in the 4 billion years of life on Earth, nature has produced only one intelligent and technological species, namely Homo Sapiens, or us. Even Seth Shostak has quoted this idea in his book "Sharing the Universe." And he supports the "many intelligences" side of the debate.
Being trained in Anthropology, I have always wondered how Anthro could contribute to the notion of life in the cosmos. For those on the list not so familiar with things Anthro, let me just say that one of the long-standing problems in human evolution has been the problem of who the Neanderthals were, and what their connection with modern humans (ultimately us) was. Two lines of thought have persisted... one, that they were asubspecies of us, but definitely Homo Sapiens. The other, that they were a distant cousin at best, and probably a different species. The debate has raged for years based largely on paleontological analysis of skeletal fossils. Enter in recent years mitochondrial DNA analysis and now it seems an answer is emerging. The analyses done so far seem to say that the Neanderthal DNA is too far distant from our own for them to be considered ancestral to us, and they represent a different species that, one way or another, went extinct. They did, however, coexist along side us modern stocks for quite a few thousand years. The debate is still going on, but the evidence is mounting in the direction of separate species. The important point is that they were indeed cultural creatures, with technology. They made sophisticated tools for their time, were excellent hunters, buried their dead, etc. Some anthropologists maintain they weren't all that different from our ancestors. Or us.
Seth Shostak talks about the point of technology in his book. How much technology is required to be intelligent? If we define intelligence by the ability to make a SETI search with a radio telescope, then we became an intelligent species only 50 years ago. By this definition, Grote Reber and Frank Drake were the first intelligent humans.
I think we need to be a little more flexible and I'm willing to accept the Neanderthals as being technological and intelligent. Why they went extinct (if that is what happened), I will leave to the professional anthropologists to discover.
But the point leads to the obvious conclusion that if the Neanderthals were intelligent, and had a culture, and produced technology (even though primitive by our standards today), then it throws a very large point in favor of the "many intelligences" hypothesis. We and the Neanderthal, it seems, may indeed have had a common ancestor at one point but somewhere along the line we went our separate ways to the extent of having different gene pools. Somehow we survived, but they didn't, and that is still the puzzle today.
If this line of reasoning is correct, then multiple intelligences are indeed possible. The possibility of finding another intelligence out there has increased. Here's a url for those who wish to read up on this Neanderthal stuff. There's lots of other interesting anthro material there, too.
Cheers.
Val Phoenix KG2PM - Houston - SETI