Intelligent life may only emerge once every 35 million years
In short: How common is intelligence in the cosmos? Professor Ian Morison adapts a famous astronomical formula to suggest that complex life might be significantly rarer than we often imagine.
In this lecture from Gresham College, Professor Ian Morison of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics examines the probability of extraterrestrial intelligence. By adapting the Drake Equation—a probabilistic framework used to estimate the number of active, communicative civilizations in our galaxy—Morison suggests a sobering timeline.
His calculations indicate that intelligent life might only arise approximately every 35 million years. This perspective provides a critical counterpoint to the idea of a universe teeming with immediate neighbors, highlighting the potential scarcity of advanced civilizations across cosmic scales.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Does other life exist in the Universe? (Part 2)
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