"Steve O" <stoboyle@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:3hrj2cFigjfdU1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "matty-o" <nospam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:2MudnS9IuJg4wSrfRVn-sw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> "Steve O" <stoboyle@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>> news:3hjgliFhdj2aU1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>
>> <snip>
>>
>
> No, that's not exactly right.
> I realised that my statement could be misinterpreted as soon as I had
> posted it.
> What I should have said was that the universe has been around for about
14
> billion years, and it took at least ten billion years before any form of
> life even started to develop or had the op****tunity to develop.
> Given that timescale, it would be ublikely that any alien life form
would
> be "billions of years ahead of us" - unless , of course, they found a
way
> to develop faster within the 4 billion year window than we did.
This, again, is wrong in principle. Once again, it took 10 billion-or-so
years
for life to develop around our sun because our sun DIDN'T EVEN EXIST
for the first 10 billion-or-so years of the universe. Your argument is
based on
a VERY earth-centric view of how things came together.
The earliest stars and galaxies formed a mere 100,000,000 years after the
big bang,
and the largest of those stars probably started going supernova shortly
thereafter.
This means there could've been sufficient heavy elements to make planet
formation (and consequently life)
possible within 1 or 2 billion years. That's a full 8 BILLION YEARS
before
the earth formed.
This, in theory, give the earliest intelligent species (if they ever even
came about) an 8 billion year head start
on humanity.
Your argument seems to be that since the earth formed 4.5 billion years
ago,
NO OTHER PLANED
could've formed before that. That's nonsense.
Matty-o
>
>
>> stars have been forming constantly for the past 12-15 billion years
>> (depending on whom you ask), if an intelligent alien race popped up
>> around a star that formed a MERE 6 billion years ago, they could very
>> well be 1 billion years ahead of us technologically and culturally (and
>> several billion years farther along than that if you concede that their
>> star formed perhaps 9 or 10 billion years ago).
>
>> The point is, there has been PLENTY of time for SEVERAL intelligent
>> species to develop, each one a billion-or-so years more advanced than
the
>> previous one.
>>
>> Matty-o
>>
>
>
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