What is it about?
Developing the ideas of earlier work, this simple paper illustrates how considerations of plate tectonics and simple ecology can explain why the planets that orbit red dwarfs (which are the most numerous in the universe) are unlikely to ever host intelligent life.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
It adds another key concept to our understanding of how life develops, evolves and may ultimately produce intelligent organisms in the context of the kinds of planets that orbit the most abundant stars in the universe. The evolution of complexity and intelligent life on land is not simply down to chance, nor is it down the presence of liquid water and a suitable atmosphere.
Perspectives
I was dissatisfied with theories addressing Fermi's so-called paradox as these only considered the stability of atmospheres or the complexity of travelling over interstellar distances. They didn't consider the impact of biological evolution as a key determinant of the ability of life on distant worlds to contact us.
Dr David Sinclair Stevenson
Carlton le Willows Academy
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Niche amplitude, tidal-locking and Fermi's Paradox, International Journal of Astrobiology, July 2018, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s1473550418000253.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
