Humans are the First Aliens. Here's Why.

Where are all the aliens?! This is the essence to the Fermi Paradox. It's most popular solution is the "Great Filter." What is the obstacle that life and/or intelligent species are unlikely to survive? Let's discuss.

00:00 Cold Open
00:18 Introduction
00:48 History of the Fermi Paradox
02:48 Fermi Paradox Explained
03:55 Drake Equation Explained
07:04 The Great Filter
09:56 Rare Earth Hypothesis
10:53 Geologic Time in Galactic Years
14:48 Evolution of Intelligent Life
17:03 Conclusions
19:11 Poll Results
19:47 Outro
20:10 Featured Comment

Nick Lucid - Host/Writer/Editor/Animator
Natalie Wells - Researcher
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What is Life?

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RELATED YOUTUBE VIDEOS

PBS Space Time on Fermi Paradox:

Kurzgesagt on Fermi Paradox:
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"Intelligent Life in the Universe." by I. S. Shklovskii & Carl Sagan (1966)

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"If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life" by Stephen Webb (2002)
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[Nefylym]

She may be a biologist, and he may be a physicist, but it's the chemistry between them that is the most endearing. I wish I had that kind of marriage. Bless you both!

[andrewjohnson]

The second assumption is questionable. Consider: 1) The universe has been capable of supporting sentient life for billions of years 2) it took 14 billion years for our planet to get to the point where it has a single civilization capable of being detected from space 3) after less than 100 years of having a civilization detectable from space we appear to be about to destroy that civilization 4) we are currently scanning less than 3% of the night sky for alien civilizations 5) we hav been doing that scanning for less than 75 years. It would be mathematically more likely for two people at opposite ends of a pitch black football stadium armed with pistols to shoot each other bullets out of the air in a single try than for us to be in exact the right time and place to detect an alien civilization using the methods that we are using.

[Shadow_Enz]

I keep geeking out and gushing over this video over and over again. Love the dynamics between you two, and meshing biology + physics is just so fun here.

[ChrisHalliganLaw]

The most mind-blowing fact is that Fermi's friends gave him the credit posthumously.

[TheLEEC]

The problem with “communicating” is the assumption that a large portion of the signals are detectable. Earth discovered radio more or less yesterday and since then our use of information technology has exploded. We are already transforming our technology from large inefficient broadcast signals to tiny low-power digital cells and optics that barely leaks any signals at all and, if they do, looks a lot like noise. At that point, we need to put efforts into making ourselves heard to stay detectable. Learning from our own progress, we might need to add to the equation: Civilisations who choose to search and communicate with other life.

[spky]

Superb presentation. Love the scientific teamwork. Being a "radio person" I think the detectability is an issue. From the first low and medium frequency "spark" signals around the year 1900 which did not escape Earth's ionosphere, over the course of the next 100 years we developed (at least here in Europe) million-watt UHF TV analogue transmitters which sprayed out their signal in all directions easily punching their way to outer space. These signals would look structured to even quite casual examination.This era has sadly now passed and we are in the digital age which tends to consist of vast numbers of very low power signals which overlap and mix, and basically sound or look like random noise at any distance from the source - if they even appear in the radio spectrum. The internet for example started on old-fashioned copper telephone wires, went patchily and briefly to (radio) satellites then mostly migrated to fibre-optic cables. Some satellite usage is returning with the likes of Starlink and Oneweb but again these are digital signals and will be just contributions to the "galactic mush" when observed beyond the solar system.

[ynkybomber]

I love the concept of 20 galactic years. That is so easy to articulate to people. Sub earned.

[ZS-bgjo]

Just finished the Three Body Problem series and... his answer is kinda scary. Anyone successful enough to be interstellar will probably be very aggressive. Being aggressive, they will expect others to be aggressive. So ... will evolve to a) hide from others and b) aggressively remove competition before it becomes a threat.

[TheBatch]

I think the "intelligent" life we're always talking about is when you reach the stage of metathinking - when you can think about thinking - and take your evolution into your own hands and determine the course of your population.

[thatguythatlikesdeadthings]

I think when most people say "intelligent life" they mean the ability to develop and utilize complex tools. Many animals use tools from nature for survival but they do not modify those tools such as sharpening stone into an axe that is strapped to a wooden pole to cut down trees, etc.

[grapy]

My God! I love when you two collaborate. She has got patience and intelligence to process what you explain! And she represents us audience when asking simple but important questions. Please do more vids together!

[ericlondon]

I love how much the experts talk so confident about things they are 100% guessing about.
We have no idea wtf is out there.

[polblanes]

I feel like many people think about evolution as a process of constant improvement towards "better" species, which in a sense it is, but only towards species being better adapted to their environment. Intelligence is not the natural endgame of evolution.

I think intelligence, meaning a species being eventually capable to build a radio as you said, is incredibly uncommon. We can see species that communicate in some sense, species that use objects as tools, species that solve conceptual problems and puzzles. But what none of those have is the capacity to be self aware of their own instincts or behaviors or the ability to make objects out of their imagination. What evolutionary pressures would drive species into having those abilities? I just think we got lucky.

[danojc]

I miss this stuff, been too caught up in pandemic noise for the last 2 years, but look forward to focusing on interesting things with you guys, thanks Nick.

[keeboha]

I've head scientists talk about the Fermi Paradox every so often in other videos, but useuely in relation to similar topics. I really enjoyed your presentation regarding the Fermi paradox. I actually learned more from your 20 minute video, than I have from previous videos I've watched.
Thank you and to quote Dr. Ian Malcolm... "Life finds a way" 🖖🏻

[sigmaelite]

The one thing that was not mentioned was that we as humans have only been detectable for about a 100 year and now we are quite as far as noise in the galaxy so being at the same level of technology is the most unlikely answer to why we have not hear the other civilization

[Boogieplex]

We literally only started looking.
Its like grabbing a cup of water from the ocean and not seeing any fish.

[encinoman]

I've always felt that the fermi paradox makes the assumption that we _know_ how these aliens travel around or they aren't already here and we can't detect them.

[FlamingRobzilla]

I love it when scientists stray into the realm of philosophy. I remember this question when I was taking my first Astronomy class in college. "Do you believe there is intelligent life in the universe, and why or why not?" It was posed as an essay question on my final exam. My answer was based in part on the geological principal of Uniformitarianism, expanded to cover other planetary environments specific to evolution of intelligence. In other words I looked at our own planet, and assuming the same evolutionary conditions existed on other planets, counted the number of intelligent species on it relative to all life. My conclusion also depended greatly upon the definition of "intelligence." To be brutally concise, based upon my observations I postulated that intelligence was not a binary condition, but one of kind and of degree. There are many intelligent species on our planet, but only one that has evolved the ability to think in abstracts to the degree that the human species has. So if that's the kind of intelligence we're looking for, it has to be a rare thing. My conclusion was that while life itself was probably common, the chances that a species would develop intelligence beyond the need to survive and reproduce is rare but possible, and that our very existence is proof. I got an "A" in Astronomy 101 by the way. ;-)

[ankokuraven]

I think the solution to the Fermi Paradox is the inspiration to the Fermi Paradox

"There is so much universe."

Like you seemed to come to the conclusion of, it's a detection issue, but I'm not sure it's one of lack of tech on either end. It's the analogy of dipping a bucket in the ocean and wondering where all the fish are. We have to look in the right spot in the ocean at the right time if we want to scoop some fish.

For the Drake Equation,

When it comes to "habitable planets with life" I'm also, as a biologist, comfortable setting that value near one. We only have one data set for abiogenesis, but earth has a multitude of extreme environments and all of them still end up with life. It may not have started in those environments, but it's additional data points saying that if life can, it will.

The biggest issue I have with the way we use the drake equation is the "number of habitable planets." This is where we assume far too much that life will be like us. Number of planets inhabitable to us and inhabitable are different values. As such I think life is more likely than we give it credit for.

As for the number of habitable planets for life like us, id set the likelihood of intelligence near one.

Convergent evolution almost demands it. And when we have several very very different species with near human intelligence, many with self recognition, and atleast one other with theory of mind on our own planet in very different environments and niches, I think the real limiting factor is time. It will EVENTUALLY happen. It's too beneficial a survival strategy to not. It's like eyes. How many times did those evolve independently?

The one galactic year time point I think is still missing is genetic recombination, sexual reproduction and other means of swapping DNA. This development accelerated genetic diversity, and gave natural selection much more to act on and "quicker" to us looking at the timeline.