The following gave me to think:
- Dimitar Sasselov: How we found hundreds of Earth-like planets | Video
on TED.com - First Direct Photo of Alien Planet Finally Confirmed
- Latest estimation: 100 million earth like planets in the visible universe
- Age of the life on earth: 4 billion years out of 14 billion, the age of the universe
- Lately we find water everywhere in our own solar system when we look closer (frozen and even melting water on Mars, hidden oceans and ice caps on Jupiter/Saturn moons)
Conclusion: Life should be quiet common in the universe and significant on the time scale. But if we look at the intelligent life of humankind, it’s absolutely insignificant on the time scale. After all, the human race is only 1 million years old with no big changes since 100,000 years. This means if we could resurrect a 100,000 year old frozen human, he or she could live in our time without any limitations. He or she could learn everything we know, work in science, become an artist, a teacher or be an entrepreneur who changes the world. No limitations. So what have we been doing over the last 100,000 years? Why haven’t we developed science, industrialization, space flight and computers thousands of years ago? It took only 500 years from Copernicus to landing on the Moon. Those 500 years could have happened at any time in any ancient civilization.
The only thing that did hold those civilizations back was their attitude, their mindset. The attitude of believing in what they thought were facts instead of questioning everything. This questioning of everything is the core of science. Something is only considered a fact for so long as it can’t be proven otherwise and everyone is free to do so without getting burned on a stake.
So what stronger indication is there, that attitude is everything?
It made the difference between stone age and such achievements as space flight, the internet, quantum physics and decrypting the secrets of our own DNA.
One of the most profound statements I have ever heard is:
“Attitude is more important than facts, because facts are usually just opinions!”
Every time someone changed the world, he or she had the attitude to question or ignore what seemed to be facts at the time. Thus there should be no limitation for the development of humankind if we keep questioning the old facts and generating new ones all the time.