DDO Olympics: Science

Con has cited a source specifically used to identify extraterrestrial life equivalent to our own when the resolution does not specify a degree of intelligence. I now need to build a case for the many lower levels of intelligence common in all life ironically establishing my burden of proof since the debate resolution does not specify extraterrestrial life. There are many forms of intelligent life on earth. -Intelligence Due to our natural Xenophobia it is easy to forget that intelligent life is common on earth but this is simply true. Con has only assumed that by intelligent I was referring to a mind equivalent to our own but that is not the case. The source Con references sites chimpanzees, dolphins and bonobos as intelligent as dolphins communicate and many primates use tools care for their young etc. It also references the Encephalization Quotient as a decent ratio used to estimate intelligence placing humans on a sliding scale with many animals. Without a definition in the resolution standard dictionary definitions apply. Merriam Webster defines intelligence as: the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations [1]. Dictionary. com specifically refer animals when defining intelligence: giving a good understanding or a high mental capacity; quick to comprehend, as persons or animals: an intelligent student [2]. It would certainly be interesting to find life with a directly comparable form of intelligence but there are many forms of intelligent life right here on earth. -Many animals communicate. Animals use a variety of methods to communicate and this is common in the animal kingdom [3]. Many animals use visual cues to communicate such as gulls, bonobos, wolves/dogs, various amphibians and chimps. Others communicate through sounds in mating rituals, indicating a food location, territory or warning calls as seen in various bats, deer, whales and elephant seals. Many animals have some form of communication [4]. One researcher has worked with prairie dogs extensively and the animals have word like sounds that are combined into sentence like calls for a variety of warning calls to distinguish between predators. Cats have around 35 vocalizations and various signals utilizing body language. It’s also important to note that, among humans, when our words and body language contradict we naturally accept the body language as more accurate and this is a common form of communication among animals. -Animals demonstrate problem solving ability to adjust to new situations. “Many animals routinely solve problems of locomotion, food finding, and shelter through trial and error. Some higher animals, such as apes and cetaceans, have demonstrated more complex problem-solving abilities, including discrimination of abstract stimuli, rule learning, and application of language or language like operations [6]. ” “It is clear that animals of quite a range of species are capable of solving a range of problems that are argued to involve abstract reasoning. ” -Animals have many qualities associated with intelligence. Many animals demonstrate a memory and the ability to learn in areas like long distance navigation a shortened modified response to repeat stimulus etc [3]. Many Mammals, Birds, fish and invertebrates have been observed using tools and/or weapons. Animals adjust to circadian rhythms and identify time intervals. Many animals demonstrate numeracy accurately estimating quantities or with a rudimentary ability to count. Animals demonstrate emotional behavior [6] and even insects and molusks have states of attentiveness and decision-making. Birds have a parallel evolution of consciousness and there is evidence of near human-like consciousness particularly in African Grey Parrots. “The weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. ” Although animals lack aspects of human psychology there are many examples of intelligent forms of life right here on earth. Are humans really one single form of intelligence? It’s easy to group together and pretend we all think the same but the reality is we are all uniquely alone in our minds (I’m great at parties). The Widely used Myers-Brigs type indicator indicates there are 16 distinct personality types all based on a sliding scale of four dichotomies that indicate preferred methods of cognitive functions [13]. The personality test is fairly simple (compared to psyche tests for high security clearances for example) but it generates 1.6 billion distinct personality values. This is compounded when you consider the many distinct cultural memes that can have a large impact on how we think. There are 195 countries with how many clicks, classes and social varieties? There are 400 different definitions for mental disorder and easily 150+ ‘mental disorders’ on wikipedia, which raises a question [14]. How many forms of healthy thought process are there? It is simply not accurate to state that humans are one form of intelligent life. Intelligence takes many forms. Also aliens The many local forms of local intelligent life likely have a large multiplier in the rest of the galaxy. Whatever the mechanism of abiogenisis (the spontaneous formation of the first self replicating molecules leading to ‘life’) the early appearance indicates that there is a good chance that life will spontaneously occur given the right conditions [8]. The Drake Equation has been used to estimate the number of active civilizations with advanced communication in our galaxy [9]. It multiplies several factors to estimate the potential to identify an advanced civilization in our galaxy intent on communication. The equation includes several factors that are relevant here such as the fraction of sunlike stars, average number of planets per star, planets suitable for life and the fraction of plants that actually develop life. However, many of the factors are not strictly relevant to this debate. The number of stars, fraction of civilizations that develop technology and the ratio of civilization lifetime are also multipliers used to calculate the probability. There are many more stars in the observable universe than there are in our galaxy and a civilization is not necessary to demonstrate many forms of intelligent life as seen on earth. There is a wide range of calculated values for the drake equation anywhere from 0.125 to 400 planets in our galaxy with advanced intelligent life [10]. The range here assumes that civilizations last from 1,000 to 10,000 years but many forms of intelligent life have existed on earth since the first mammals for over 200 million years [11]. These values are also calculated for a single galaxy, the Milky Way. It is estimated that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the Universe recently estimated to be as high as 500 billion [12]. This places the estimate of the number of planets in the universe with many forms of intelligent life in the range of 1.25*10^16 to 4*10^18. [1] . http://www.merriam-webster.com... [2] . http://www.merriam-webster.com... [3] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] . http://tinyurl.com... [5] . http://www.britannica.com... [6] . http://fcmconference.org... [8] . http://www.hawking.org.uk... [9] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [10] . http://www.astro.umd.edu... [11] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [12] . http://www.dailygalaxy.com... [13] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [14] . http://en.wikipedia.org...