Reddit reviews If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life

This is one of my all time favorite topics of conjecture. My favorite book on this topic was one called Where Is Everybody by Stephen Webb. If you enjoyed this article I guarantee you'll want to buy this book.

If FD want to adhere to the science, it seems likely that while microscopic life may be ubitquitous on planets wihin habitable zones, macroscopic life like Earth's may be very rare. Common M-class habitable worlds may be tidally locked storm-worlds, rarer O,B,A and F class stars may leave the main sequence before their Cambrian explosions, and the limited number of terrestrial, tectonically active worlds in non-eccentric, continuously habitable orbits around G and K class stars of the right age (4-5.5 B years for macroscopic life on Earth, til our own runaway greenhouse), and that haven't been sterilized by cometary impact or nearby supernova, may severely limit independent origins for macroscopic life. See Rare Earth, How to Find a Habitable Plant, Lucky Planet, and Where is Everybody for further constraints.

Hence most of the macroscopic life found on HZ worlds in human space may be seeded during terraforming operations. Inhabited Earth-like planets may mostly have Earth creatures, borrowed from the 101 wild animals of Zoo Tycoon, but also the domesticated animals humans bring everywhere they settle.

Truly alien macroscopic plant and wildlife may await till peace accords with Thargoids allow us to land on their own thargaformed worlds.

Thanks for taking the time to write this.

1. talking about the universe is off topic. Later on he switches to the galaxy and discusses the Fermi paradox. It doesn't matter how many stars are in the universe; the galaxies are so far apart that there is no way (that we know of) to communicate except by setting off supernova in some sequence (which totally sterilizes that part of the galaxy) or perhaps messing with neutron stars. So, we can ignore the 10^24 stars in the universe and just consider the 10^11 stars in the Milky Way.
   
2. The number of earth like planets is really small. The book "Rare Earth" details this. But we can just ignore this for now.
   
3. Fermi paradox. Yes! The book Where is Everybody? examines 50 solutions to the Fermi Paradox. The new edition has 75 solutions!
   
4. The principle of mediocrity is an assumption that is completely unproven. It is also specific to various fields and can't just be broadly applied to everything. It is used in cosmology with some controversy, but applying it to extraterrestrial civilizations is a huge unsubstantiated leap. The example for gravity is completely incorrect. Gravity is considered universal because all experimental tests everywhere have indicated that Newton's universal law of gravity is correct. Everywhere, every time. Two exceptions: (a) modification for GR is needed (e.g. for Mercury's orbit) (b) galaxies are rotating too fast, so either Newton's law is wrong on large scales or else there is dark matter. So far, we're going with unseen dark matter.
   
5. "Whitmire found that if he assumed that humans are typical rather than exceptional, then the bell curve produced by statistical analysis places us in the middle of 95 percent of all civilizations" What civilisations? What bell curve? There is only one civilization: human beings on planet earth. A single point does not make a bell curve.
   
6. "In other words, if the human race is typical ..." There is no way to know this since there is a sample size of one. Whitmore should know this.
   
7. "Since this is a statistical result, standard deviation is involved. ..." I dispute that this is a statistical result in anyway, except for a salient example of misuse of statistics.
   
8. Oho! They do mention the sample size of one near the end! Somehow the predicted lifespan is always 5 times our total radio+ age (100 years so far). This is worse than Zeno's paradox. It's obvious that we'll never go extinct according to these calculations, because each year that goes by means that we'll exist for 5 year more. So one could conclude that we we will not go extinct until we do -- yes, a meaningless tautological truism, that's about all one can conclude from this article.
   
9. Conclusion: This article is indeed meaningless clickbait. It's more worth while to read the two books that I mentioned above.
   
10. Note that this is written by a (science?) reporter who is discussing Whitmore's work and making it palatable for the reader, and not written by Whitmore himself.
    
    So ... let's have a look at Whitmore's article ... okay. I don't have time to read it as well. Just a few notes from the abstract and glancing at it.
    
    

• later on he refers to the principle of Mediocrity by its correct name: the Copernican principle. Good.
  
• he says it's a cornerstone of modern cosmology, but does not mention physics. Excellent. That's the science reporter who added in that error.
  
• "If we assume that this principle applies to the reference class of all extant technological species," -- this class has only one element in it: us!
  
• "then it follows that other technological species will, like us, typically find that they are both the first such species to evolve on their planet and also that they are early in their potential technological evolution." I disagree on the second part. Sure, there is an excellent chance that any civilization is the first one on its planet. However, no one knows the limits of technological evolution so it's meaningless to speculate how far along a non-existent hypothetical alien race is when we can't even tell how far along we ourselves are. It's really quite ridiculous, however, just because something is riduculous doesn't mean that it won't get published if it's a slow news week and if it concerns something titilating to the public.
  
  P.S. The journal is called "Journal of Astrobiology" ! That in itself should set off alarm bells as there is no astrobiology. That's the whole point of the Fermi Paradox. Astrobiology is studying something that doesn't exist - like pink invisible unicorns.

Relevant book: If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens... Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to Fermi's Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life

Short boring blog spam.
If you are interested in the Fermi Paradox go pick up Where is Everybody? ( http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Aliens-Everybody-Solutions-Extraterrestrial/dp/0387955011 )

Oh, the Fermi Paradox.

This was a good treatment of the topic:

Where Is Everybody? 50 Solutions To Fermi's Paradox

Personally I think life is probably very common, intelligent life much less so, the distances are vast enough that the engineering and logistics problems are decidedly non-trivial and there's always the possibility that most civilizations don't survive their nuclear age.

I strongly recommend:
If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life

If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY? is a nice book on the subject that I bought on another redditors recommendation, and it was really worth it!

If you want some deeper knowledge about this topic I recommend this book:


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Universe-Teeming-Aliens-Everybody-Extraterrestrial/dp/0387955011

Reason #1 in this book makes a case that aliens are here and they are Hungarian. Tongue in cheek response but he makes a case for it

If you haven't read it, this book covers a huge number of conceivable reasons for the Fermi Paradox:

https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Teeming-Aliens-WHERE-EVERYBODY/dp/0387955011

Here's a great great great book about the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Teeming-Aliens-WHERE-EVERYBODY/dp/0387955011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406844484&sr=8-1&keywords=50+solutions+to+the+fermi+paradox