Why Life On Mars May Foretell Our Doom

Hugh Pickens writes "Nick Bostrom has an interesting interpretation on why the failure of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) for the past half-century is good news and why the discovery of life on Mars could foretell our doom. Bostrom postulates a 'Great Filter,' which can be thought of as a probability barrier and consists of one or more evolutionary transitions or steps that must be traversed at great odds in order for an Earth-like planet to produce a civilization capable of exploring distant solar systems."

Comments

Re:Ignores possibility of the Singularity

[glitch23]

He presupposes a lot of things that aren't necessarily true, or are pretty improbable.

How is evolution any different? The sheer fact that we are here is not evidence that evolution works either. Remember, circular logic is not allowed in science.