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Astronomer: If Earth Is Average, We Should Find Alien Life Within 60 Light-Years
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this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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Futurology
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Well statistically speaking you and me are probably both quite average....
But average here means just a rocky planet inside it's stars habitable zone. That is then shoved into the drake equation and that gives out that prediction for planet harboring at least microbial life within 65 light years, provided that 1% of planets with a chance to do so eventually develop life.
Check out the Copernican principle:
The idea is that an individual is probably pretty close to whatever is "normal" for its group. Like, most people are around the normal height for their country. So we're probably pretty close to whatever "normal" is for a terrestrial intelligence.
Could there be other forms of life that are wildly different from us? Definitely. But we probably aren't special. Statistically speaking, they probably aren't either. So we're probably fairly similar.
This theory was generated from a sample size of one, so it may be totally incorrect.
The problem is, due to the anthropic principle, we cannot say that the occurrence of life is average, because there is an inherent selection bias there. If life didn't exist on earth, we wouldn't be here to observe it. We only come into existence where life already is, and so we do not have a true average planet. To have a true average planet, we would have needed the ability to come into existence on a lifeless world. The cosmological principle actually doesn't quite hold, because we are in a privileged position, as we, by definition, cannot come into existence where there isn't life. This includes the kind of universe we exist in, as well, if multiple universes exist.
So, from our existence we cannot form any conclusions on how common life is. At best only an educated guess. If we detect life on another planet, only then can we begin drawing conclusions, as in that case we avoid a selection bias.
Speak for yourself. I've got higher than average number of hands, feet, fingers, toes, arms., legs, teeth, eyes, ears, hair, and more!