A new study suggests that the chances of detecting advanced alien civilizations are frustratingly slim, thanks to a delicate balance between their birth and death rates. This ‘fine-tuning problem’ casts a shadow of doubt over the optimism surrounding the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
The Elusive Ratio Dilemma
Published on the preprint server arXiv under review, the study explores a crucial ratio — birth rate to death rate of advanced civilizations. The authors argue that this ratio is the most important factor to consider when estimating the number of other technological societies we might be able to detect in our galaxy.
The scientists claim that this ratio needs to reside in an extremely fine-crafted bandfor SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)to become successful, usually between 0.01 and 0.1. The ratio, though, could be anything one per world per millennium to one per trillion worlds per trillion years as well (note that for some reasons we have no a priori knowledge about this value for those hypothetical planets as it can differ very strongly).
The authors note that this ratio has hovered near unity infrequently on Earth, and point out that the technologically advanced human species of our planet occupied a mere century—five one-hundred-millionths of its 4.6 billion year history. They claim that this trend is likely to be true for any other developed civilizations in the galaxy, further complicating the ‘sweet spot’ argument for detection.
Overwhelming Odds and the Necessity for Tenacity
If the entire Milky Way galaxy was teeming with alien civilizations, statistically speaking we would still struggle to find them in anything less than a few hundred million years – once every 10 million trillion attempts.
The authors argue that the ratio of birth-to-death could be much less than one, without any obvious lower bound and no matter what reason human is according to them quoting. They will go on to compare this to the estimate of how likely it is for proteins to spontaneously form from amino acids, which scientists have put at 10^-77 – a very, very small number.
That said, the authors stress that the search for extraterrestrial life should continue unabated, because one affirmative discovery would be a game-changer. They also imply possible solutions to their findings, however, from the Grabby Aliens hypothesis to the possibility that Earth might be in a fairly radio-quiet part of our galaxy, both of which could increase detection odds.
Conclusion
The results of the study provide a healthy dose of perspective to anyone who holds out hope for finding ultra-advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. The center has reduced the delicate balance between birth and death rates to what is known as the “fine-tuning problem,” and its insurmountable odds help demonstrate what sets units apart in SETI’s life. However, the authors argue that further exploration in the search for this ultimate question is needed because even a single successful discovery would change human history forever. Albeit, the stakes are so large that there seems little else to do but pursue this quest, with a hint of promise from the authors which might still swing things in favour of detection.
