New Model Calculates Chances of Intelligent Beings In Our Universe and Beyond

Chances of intelligent life emerging in our Universe "and in any hypothetical ones beyond it" can be estimated by a new theoretical model, reports the Royal Astronomical Society.

Since stars are a precondition for the emergence of life, the new research predicts that a typical observer [i.e., intelligent life] should experience a substantially larger density of dark energy than is seen in our own Universe... The approach presented in the paper involves calculating the fraction of ordinary matter converted into stars over the entire history of the Universe, for different dark energy densities. The model predicts this fraction would be approximately 27% in a universe that is most efficient at forming stars, compared to 23% in our own Universe. Dark energy makes the Universe expand faster, balancing gravity's pull and creating a universe where both expansion and structure formation are possible. However, for life to develop, there would need to be regions where matter can clump together to form stars and planets, and it would need to remain stable for billions of years to allow life to evolve.

Crucially, the research suggests that the astrophysics of star formation and the evolution of the large-scale structure of the Universe combine in a subtle way to determine the optimal value of the dark energy density needed for the generation of intelligent life. Professor Lucas Lombriser, Université de Genève and co-author of the study, added: "It will be exciting to employ the model to explore the emergence of life across different universes and see whether some fundamental questions we ask ourselves about our own Universe must be reinterpreted."
The study was funded by the EU's European Research Council, and published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.

The probability is high

[dbialac]

Given how vast the universe is, I think the better question to ask is, "What is the likelihood that there isn't intelligent life elsewhere?" I would assume very low. The problems that life has had to encounter here are not so different from the problems that life has had to encounter elsewhere.

Re:

[sinij]

Given how vast the universe is, I think the better question to ask is, "What is the likelihood that there isn't intelligent life elsewhere?"

Indeed, but yet there are no observable signs of intelligent life anywhere. Kardashev [wikipedia.org] Type 1 would be observable in nearby starts, Type 2 would be detectable to us anywhere in our galaxy and Type 3 would be detectable in a lot of visible galaxies.

What in the world has happened to science?

[davide marney]

Good Lord, a "scientific" paper using a "modeled" distribution of "dark" energy to predict the "emergence" of intelligent life via natural selection of randomly mutated changes in genetic structures?

That's the plot of a Sci-Fi novel.

Assumptions

[phantomfive]

Since stars are a precondition for the emergence of life,

That's a rather large assumption, I would say. Energy of some kind is surely a precondition for life, but does it have to come from stars?

and it would need to remain stable for billions of years to allow life to evolve.

Given that we have a sample size of 1, do you really feel confident assuming you know how long it takes for life to evolve?

Dark energy makes the Universe expand faster, balancing gravity's pull and creating a universe where both expansion and structure formation are possible.

These seem like inordinately confident assertions considering how little we actually know about dark energy.

Re:

[burtosis]

Given that we have a sample size of 1, do you really feel confident assuming you know how long it takes for life to evolve?

Billions of years is likely an overestimate of what’s possible, but any life as it’s remotely defined needs to store information and process it in a way to evolve. So long periods of stability are likely a minimum requirement. It could be deep within a planet around an unstable star, it could possibly evolve on a gas planet without a usable surface, but it does need stability or its self replicating pattern is simply wiped away.

Nonesense

[BloomFilter]

What a load of nonsense. You can't use probability to predict something happening that has only ever happened ONCE (abiogenesis) that we know of. That isn't how statistics work. And you can't just throw "universe is really big" at the problem either. There have been TRILLIONS of organic chemicals bouncing around Earth for 4 billion years and those never because alive before or after that one life-starting event, so sheer numbers obviously don't matter. It is just insanity to use probability, we don't have e

Re:

[null etc.]

TRILLIONS is a relatively small number, cosmologically speaking.

TL; DR

[PLAST]

So what's the result? Are there any?

Model makes many assumptions to come up +-100000%

[rahmrh]

Model makes many assumptions to come up an answer that is +-100000% .

I am not sure how a model that estimates various things that we actually have zero idea about (or even what is or if it actually exists--dark energy/matter), could come up with a useful answer.

Maybe as a though experiment.

But probably Garbage in/Garbage out.

Plenty of versions of the Drake Equation out there

[Eunomion]

Just tweak the assumptions here and there, throw in or take out terms here and there, you'll get any result you want. It's just conjecture. A fun little game for the sci-fi enthusiast. Calling it a model would be absurd at this point. We need a baseline of well-characterized exoplanets, and we're not even close to that.