Re: The human race almost didn't happen

2023-09-14 Thread John Clark 
On Thu, Sep 14, 2023 at 5:56 PM Jason Resch  wrote:

*> the single-cell to multi-cell gap, the rise of many species (whose chief
> survival advantage is their high intelligence), seems to have been
> relatively short. *


> *been re We also note it occurs in many separate evolutionary lines
> (cephalopods, cetaceans, corvids, primates).*
> *It's true that if multicellular life is hard that intelligence is hard,
> but it seems once there's multicellular life, intelligence is easy.*
>

As far as the search for ET is concerned, the operational definition of
intelligence is the ability to make a radio telescope, and cephalopods,
cetaceans and corvids have not been able to do that. Multicellular life is
about 700 million years old, but radio telescopes have only been around for
about 90 years. But yes, 700 million years is short compared to 3.5 billion.


 John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

ccd


>

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Re: The human race almost didn't happen

2023-09-14 Thread Jason Resch 
On Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 2:56 PM John Clark  wrote:

> In the September 1 issue of the Journal science researchers report they
> have found, are using genetic analysis, that the ancestors of the human
> race, as well as those of the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, suffer
> through a severe population decline that started 930,000 BP (Before
> Present) and lasted for 117,000 years until 813,000 BP.  This time period
> corresponds to a gap in the fossil record when there was almost no evidence
> of our ancestors  although there are many more fossils of them both before
> and after that gap. At its lowest point there were only about 1280 breeding
> individuals, every human, Neanderthal, and Denisovan who ever lived is a
> descendent of one or all of those 1280 individuals. It is not clear what
> caused the decline but whatever it was it doesn't seem to have been a
> global environmental event because other species unrelated to us don't seem
> to have suffered through a similar apocalypse.
>
> Genomic inference of a severe human bottleneck during the Early to Middle
> Pleistocene transition
> <https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq7487>
>
>  If they're right then the human race almost didn't happen, life has
> existed on this planet for over 3 1/2 billion years but only in the last
> few thousand has a technology producing species shown up, and if things
> have been just slightly different it never would have. Perhaps this
> explains the Fermi paradox. Life is easy but intelligence is hard.
>

Most of the time seems to be between single cell and multicellular life.

In comparison to the single-cell to multi-cell gap, the rise of many
species (whose chief survival advantage is their high intelligence), seems
to have been relatively short. We also note it occurs in many separate
evolutionary lines (cephalopods, cetaceans, corvids, primates).

It's true that if multicellular life is hard that intelligence is hard, but
it seems once there's multicellular life, intelligence is easy.

Jason



> John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis
> <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>
>
> h66
>
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The human race almost didn't happen

2023-09-14 Thread John Clark 
In the September 1 issue of the Journal science researchers report they
have found, are using genetic analysis, that the ancestors of the human
race, as well as those of the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, suffer
through a severe population decline that started 930,000 BP (Before
Present) and lasted for 117,000 years until 813,000 BP.  This time period
corresponds to a gap in the fossil record when there was almost no evidence
of our ancestors  although there are many more fossils of them both before
and after that gap. At its lowest point there were only about 1280 breeding
individuals, every human, Neanderthal, and Denisovan who ever lived is a
descendent of one or all of those 1280 individuals. It is not clear what
caused the decline but whatever it was it doesn't seem to have been a
global environmental event because other species unrelated to us don't seem
to have suffered through a similar apocalypse.

Genomic inference of a severe human bottleneck during the Early to Middle
Pleistocene transition <https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq7487>

 If they're right then the human race almost didn't happen, life has
existed on this planet for over 3 1/2 billion years but only in the last
few thousand has a technology producing species shown up, and if things
have been just slightly different it never would have. Perhaps this
explains the Fermi paradox. Life is easy but intelligence is hard.

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis
<https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>

h66

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