re: #209 LudwigVanQuixote

Life popped up almost as soon as it had the merest chance, making it seem like a relatively probably event. At the same time, it took a long long time for intelligent life to arise, making that seem like a relatively very improbable event. So while the odds may be that there is likely to be a lot of life out there, it may nevertheless be very unlikely that there is much intelligent life out there.

I rmember reading that someone had calculated that it would take an intelligent civilisation with only modestly improved technology to ours a mere 1 million years to colonise the galaxy, assuming they were in no particular hurry. I can’t vouch for the calculations, but if true it would suggest that we could be the only intelligent civilisation in this galaxy?