Are We the First Intelligent Life in our Galaxy? with David Kipping

In this video, John Michael Godier and David Kipping discuss new research from the Cool Worlds Lab, applying a classic statistical result to the search for alien life. The findings suggest something suprising; join us to explore how this conclusion was reached and its potential implications.
Crowded or Lonely? The Statistics of Alien Life
• Crowded or Lonely? The...
Do SETI Optimists Have a Fine-Tuning Problem?
arxiv.org/abs/2407.07097
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[@Splucked]

I see 'David Kipping', I click. My favorite guest.

[@mortytvvv]

@@Splucked me too

[@theoptimisticskeptic]

@@mortytvvv Same here! Cool Worlds and Event Horizons are both my favorite channels on KZbin! Having them together is Stellar! (pun intended)

[@mitchellwarren5998]

100 percent this.

[@hherpdderp]

Two of the most soothing voices on KZbin

[@UNATCOHanka]

2 Kipping podcasts dropped on the same day 😅

[@spiritualanarchist8162]

This is what makes this channel so addictive. You have astronomers discussing new phenomena, physicists with some new theory about Dark matter. Ufo conspiracies , Dyson spheres, exoplanets..... and everything inbetween.

[@EventHorizonShow]

You perfectly summed up why we started the channel.

[@spiritualanarchist8162]

@@EventHorizonShow Well, it obviously worked out as planned. ;)

[@JonnoPlays]

I truly appreciate people in the KZbin community who also participate in the real scientific community and publish papers and get time on JWST etc. David is a real hero in the science community. Pushing science forward and explaining it in laymens terms for the rest of us and producing top quality content for us all to consume. Great work having him on the program so many times. Best of the best.

[@JohnnyJaxmusic]

Jmg and Kipping. What a great day

[@SirAntoniousBlock]

_'Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not, both are equally terrifying.'_ Arthur C Clarke.

[@trippyliquids]

@@SirAntoniousBlock one of my absolute favorite quotes

[@SirAntoniousBlock]

@@trippyliquids Indeed, and Clarkes three laws. 1. _When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong._ 2. _The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible._ 3. _Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic._ I've tried to live by that second one. 😉

[@trippyliquids]

@@SirAntoniousBlock right on thanks for that 😎

[@SirAntoniousBlock]

@@trippyliquids They're from his book _Profiles of the Future_ a short but cracking read. 👍

[@tylerdurden3722]

@@SirAntoniousBlock Good fiction and describing reality are typically not compatible. E.g. Most distinguished but elderly scientists are stating that it's impossible for there to be no other life in the Universe besides Earth. Clarke's first law would say they're wrong.

[@cabanford]

Kipling!!! The two best voices in cosmology ❤❤❤❤

[@cabanford]

Never mind the amazing content!

[@mychiIdfreeass]

His name is Kipping.

[@Roguescienceguy]

Kipping*

[@EseEilien]

Yes !!

[@cabanford]

@@faizanrana2998 hahaha. My poor ability to spell strikes again! ❤️

[@wheredowegofromhere79]

The host was born to be a narrator, his voice is really uncannily good

[@Roguescienceguy]

@@wheredowegofromhere79 prior to the invasion by the hoards of mind numbingly dumb illiterate savages there was a rather large region in the middle of England where everybody had this specific vocabulary. Some, as I, call it Oxfordian, others quite derogatory call it posh English and others will simply stare at you with a stupid look on their face. That's unfortunately 75 percent of England and about 97 percent of the US.

[@helloidharbl6753]

@@wheredowegofromhere79 Hard disagree. He's got a valley girl accent and zero tenor.

[@tonytaskforce3465]

@@helloidharbl6753 Envy much?

[@LeeGoddard89]

I rarely if ever hear about what importance access to fossil fuels had on our evolution to a technological society. What if it was common to have a species get to where we were 500 years ago but they didn’t have hundreds of millions of years worth of stored hydrocarbons to accelerate their growth? Is it even possible? If everything was the same in our history but there was no coal or oil where would we be now?

[@sunstardrummer]

We would be in apsolutly better position then now. Just my uneducated observation.

[@blakeb9964]

I completely agree with you. Makes sense. But I do wonder if a civilization would just immediately resort to wind and hyrdo power and later solar. That would have a definite impact on how their society evolves. Who knows what that would look like.

[@BIGV1N]

This is quite an interesting question! I've NEVER heard anyone speak on the topic. Maybe it'd just add like another 100,000 years to getting to an equivalent of where we are now? Maybe it'd force humanities hand to harness much greener energy sources without even knowing the bullet they'd avoided.

[@pavel9652]

For sure there would be more back breaking, hard work in the field, just to sustain yourself and your family. Renewables are great, but there would be no cars for a while.

[@LeeGoddard89]

@@blakeb9964 could we even invent solar or wind to produce electricity given that it requires mining metals and creating composite materials/ circuit boards etc which would be rather challenging without motorised mining equipment. Can metal be smelted in large volumes using only wood or charcoal?

[@gardenlizard1586]

We have just found out there is a 13 billion year movie running at the local cinema, have rushed to the cinema bought the popcorn and without time to clean the smudges from our glasses, walked in to the cinema and are now trying to find a seat in the darkness of the cinema, all all while only one frame of the movie has been shown. Don't expect to find ET anytime soon. Am 😊 with this expectation.

[@djunclephill422]

Agreed but they found us 😊

[@Splucked]

Beautifully worded like an old Infocom interactive fiction game. Bravo, lizard! ♥

[@clown134]

or maybe weve walked into the sequel of an infinite trilogy

[@00BillyTorontoBill]

I know a guy...

[@crewslaing3966]

JMG and Dr. Kipping?! Our lucky day.

[@davidreiter2306]

JMG w/ David Kipping, an instant recipe for a great and insightful podcast!

[@EventHorizonShow]

We agree!

[@DConnectEmpire]

This is one of these nights where everything just goes right.

[@edibleapeman]

Y'all're The Avengers of internet space-thinkers. This was a delightful meeting of minds - please do it again!

[@EventHorizonShow]

Assemble!

[@thegreenman3213]

First time listening. That was one of the most interesting conversations I’ve heard in a while. Thank you I am now hooked on your channel.

[@EventHorizonShow]

Happy you found us. You have years of shows to watch. Let us know what you like!

[@nathanbrown8515]

David Kipping. This will be a good one.

[@stricknine6130]

David Kipping is one of my favorite guests! Great interview! I personally would love an AI Octopus. Thanks for the episode.

[@LoriMartin828]

There’s an octopus garden that was recently found around San Francisco. Just like the Beatles sang 🎤 🎶, maybe part of y’ ( Y’s club) beatlejuice is otw and a 2nd movie 🎥 coming. I just look from a weird view’ a true frootloop 🌈3 days til Christmas 🤶🎄🎅 🌈💯🗽🔥❄️. Because of the WONDERFUL THINGS SHE DOES! I follow GOD, LOVE. And definitely 💯 Peace on EARTH 🌏 AMEN 🙏 (11:26amen)🆙🙌🏖️🎁

[@rotampel]

Awesome, been waiting for Dr. Kipping coming to your show, thanks JMG!

[@Greenhead24]

Oh i cant wait to watch this tonight!!

[@romanovskie3381]

This is gonna be a good one. Really like Prof kipping and the work he and cool worlds do.

[@Grim-Crusader]

Dr. David Kipping...? Always a must watch 😊

[@rb3872]

Always nice to have David back in the show!

[@greysonwolf3823]

Much needed relaxation for tonight. Thanks for what you do, and easing this restless mind!

[@EventHorizonShow]

Glad it helps, Greyson.

[@EliasAlucard]

Great, now I have something interesting to watch tonight. Kipping is one of the best guests on this podcast, along with Stephen Webb!

[@MatthewQuigley]

One more great episode! Thank you!

[@nickpricey8689]

I absolutely love this Chanel and his other Chanel.

[@cavetroll666]

Very cool interview thanks John salute from Ontario

[@spindoctor6385]

Was just listening to Dr Kipping talking with Jordan Peterson on the Daily Wire. He is masterful at discussing his research and other topics slightly differently for different audiences without the elitist attitude and talking down to people that comes with some other physicists and cosmology scientists. A class act.

[@spiritualanarchist8162]

So even Dr.Kippling went over to the dark side now.

[@spindoctor6385]

@@spiritualanarchist8162 Yeah, imagine actually talking with people you don't agree with on every single topic. You realise that is very cultish behaviour, don't you? I could actually ask what exactly is 'dark' about Peterson or the Daily Wire but I doubt that much sense would come my way if I did. Feel free to demonstrate otherwise.

[@spiritualanarchist8162]

​@@spindoctor6385 Maybe you shouldn't project so much on so little. And, no , Not listing to Jordan Peterson is not 'cultisch' It's a waste of time.

[@spindoctor6385]

@@spiritualanarchist8162 So asking a question is projection now, good take champ. I never accused you of anything. The cultish behaviour is refusing to discuss ideas that you don't agree with and demonizing the people who have them instead. I did not know that you were an adherent of that kind of behaviour or if you were just being sarcastic. But now I do. It is telling that you can't find anything specific to criticise Peterson with, he is just on the 'dark side' Don't worry, most people in a cult do not realise they are in one and they die blissfully ignorant

[@archmage_of_the_aether]

​@@spindoctor6385I agree. I dislike Peterson but I also find it valuable to listen to views different from my own, when people can articulate them. I'm not sure what happened to "liberals" over the last 20 years, they've become as censorious as Christians during the 80s Satanic Panic.

[@zapfanzapfan]

Oh, David Kipping, my good night lullaby is here! 🙂

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

So we cannot even verify if there is life on Mars or not but we already know that there is no intelligent life form in our entire galaxy ?!?

[@avenuePad]

Exactly. We havent even scratched the surface and we're trying to make blanket assumptions about life in the universe. The Rare Earth Hypothesis barely rises above religous doctrine.

[@shantiescovedo4361]

We don’t know. This is a statistical argument.

[@Jay-gf8tm]

It's called technosignatures, and we're not looking for life on mars, it's dead. We are looking for signs of life forming there billions of years ago when mars would have had oceans.

[@Jay-gf8tm]

​@@avenuePad you need to understand the complexity of life, and the literal millions of things that have to go just right for any complex life to form at all. This isn't star wars.

[@pavel9652]

I think this is argument "from expansion". Life always expand to fill all available nieches, and we always expanded. So it is fairly likely that another civilization driven by curiosity, such as ours, would expand and they wouldn't need much time to colonize the whole of almost whole galaxy, which we would be able to detect.

[@slowgherkin]

Great episode as always

[@NomenNescio99]

Dr Kipping is getting a lot of attention these days, he has just been on both the Chris Williamson and Jordan Peterson podcasts. And now he is topping it off with JMG!

[@markus9541]

Loved this. Thanks so much!

[@leveldk]

Great episode, and exactly the right length for more journey to work, and the drive back home.

[@Sundaydish1]

I spoke to my mate from the Andromeda Galaxy with my Entangled Particle Phone and he said we are the first.

[@tsppm]

What a thought provoking conversation. It was so fascinating to hear that it kept me up at night before going to bed ! Thank you 🙏🏽

[@raymondbishop5359]

Absolutely love this show and all the subjects.

[@PhiltheMoko]

Always love when Dr Kipping is on, was listening to the most recent episode of his podcast yesterday!

[@baahcusegamer4530]

Wonderful to see David again!!

[@UNATCOHanka]

Glad to find another destination on David Kipping’s Podcast Tour

[@bigd1207]

Yes!!! Love Dr Kipping!

[@MuscarV2]

I'm a big fan of you both so it would be awesome if you, Mr. Godier, would be a guest on Mr. Kipling's Cool Worlds podcast too!

[@Aitch26]

it's crazy how far the cool worlds channel has come. I remember when david first came on and even made a whole presentation about subbing that i just had to

[@EventHorizonShow]

He’s doing great work. It’s been great to see.

[@kimdillen4778]

Much appreciation for this channel! 👍👍

[@DouglasHoffman-co5mb]

Dr Kipping is one of my favorite.

[@colixo5731]

Love David Kipping. The work he does and how he communicates through his channel is excellent. And I love his approach to statistics

[@Mentaculus42]

Personally I am of the opinion that are understanding of science is sufficiently incomplete that we don’t know how to listen in on the “great intragalactic party line”.

[@billhart9832]

This is an always rewarding pairing of space exploration/ Fermi Paradox experts that are also entertaining and a pleasure to listen to.

[@TennesseeJed]

Ha, I just finished the new Cool Worlds episode! A great day for space content!

[@Space_Library]

Fantastic video! The conversation about Bayesian statistics and the future likelihood of civilizations appearing is extremely interesting. Dr. Kipping's insights make the complex topic accessible and engaging for all viewers.🥰

[@annsidbrant7616]

So, Dr Kipping's main point here, if I understand him correctly: Either the Universe typically makes intelligent life on any reasonably suitable planets, or it very rarely does. Very interesting. I'm reminded of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that systems will get more and more disordered over time. The reason for the increasing disorder is that there is just one state of perfect order, but there are enormous numbers of different states of disorder. Perhaps we can see the emergence of intelligent life in the same vein. Perhaps there is one long path of very many steps required to create intelligent life, and there are huge numbers of ways to screw up one of more of these necessary steps. If so, it follows naturally that extremely few planets will be able to create intelligent life.

[@DeepakKumar-tv1dc]

Enjoyed this episode very much!

[@hobosarepeopletoo]

Cool worlds and event horizon at the same time! Always love it

[@genkidamatrunks6759]

Great episode!

[@gorbachevdhali4952]

Having watched Dr. Kipping's video on this, importantly he doesn't rule out intelligent ET. The analysis doesn't rule out other civilizations, just that the parameter space for them seems to be extremely low, maybe even zero. We just don't know how low it is, thus he does mention in the paper there is likely more potential to find ET if we start looking outside the milky way as the numbers get much bigger. I hope I'm making sense distilling this.

[@mrrob7531]

You got Kipping?!? Ok let me arrange my snacks and beers and sit down for this one. SO EXCITED ok I like you too John

[@jimmyzhao2673]

Snacks !

[@starshade7826]

We have not been listening long enough to come to any conclusions.

[@EricManzane]

Man this is awesome, two of my favorite astronomy KZbinrs, Saludos desde Panama

[@BIGV1N]

What a treat to get a Cool Worlds upload (go watch it!) AND another great Dr. Kipping feature here within hours of each other! I really REALLY love how often he's coming back to Event Horizon, you two have a great synergy and it's always interesting!

[@justinhunt3141]

Time is probably a big factor as well. It took time for heavy elements to be formed in the universe which is necessary for life and in the 12 billion years of the universe it took around 4.6 for us to evolve on this one specific planet. Just based on that it seems we are semi early overall.

[@pinkbluechannel]

Two of my favourites in one video!

[@Quickcat21MK]

Incredible show.

[@sapphirecampbell-wh7iy]

brilliant, as always

[@cordatusscire344]

Excellent video.

[@dreamwalker3707]

Ready to enter.... This is what I am here for....❤❤❤❤❤😊

[@rickitynick4463]

Great talk.

[@carmattvidz4426]

You always hit a home run when David Kipping is a guest

[@MacroLore]

Always a good episode when Dr. Kipping is on

[@robotaholic]

The universe is teeming with simple life. We are simple life

[@michaelpettersson4919]

A world where living cells never diversify in a common body you would have no higher life forms. And our mitochondria are essentially an invasive lifeform. That had never happened we would probably get nowhere.

[@js70371]

Love Dr. Kipping!! I know his is a big proponent of the “Rare Earth” theory and even though I’m not of the same opinion I have nothing but the deepest respect for his fantastic intellect and dedication to online education!! Thank you so much for continuously bringing us an all star lineup of guests on Event Horizon John!! 💫🙏

[@avenuePad]

@@js70371 I find how he pushes the Rare Earth Hypothesis to be infuriating. I guess it's because I know he smart enough to know it's bunk.

[@Jay-gf8tm]

​@@avenuePad Earth is rare though.

[@theoldman5896]

Rare Earth is 100% the correct opinion 😃

[@McLoven-vm1ck]

Seriously though, I understand that the possible permutations given the number of stars and the possible number of planets in our galaxy is staggering, but if you really dig into the science of our environment you discover that there is a very specific set of variables that allow us to have liquid water oceans, oxygen rich atmosphere, favorable pressure and temperatures. Just slightly more or less mass, temperature, pressure, different composition, etc and we aren't here. Even If you allow for life to develop in less hospital conditions we likely wouldn't have fire, or be able to develop technology or be able to escape our gravity/atmosphere to launch satellites or space vehicles. We would be limited to a low tech civilization, trapped here by our gravity and or environment. Life in the galaxy could be abundant, but Earth like planets and technological, space faring civilizations could indeed be very rare.

[@revmatchtv]

@@avenuePadSo you’re saying he’s outright lying to everyone. He knows the rare earth hypothesis is bunk, but he lies to everyone that it’s not. What’s his motivation for lying? Or maybe some people want a thing to be true, despite all evidence to the contrary?

[@fluffyspunsugar]

Another interesting and entertaining episode!

[@ericb2017]

oh what a treat today

[@RocktCityTim]

I innocently asked this of my 9th grade science teacher (1973) - "What if we're the FIRST advanced planet?" He answered "That's just not very probable."

[@youreanidiot-ht5bt]

He was right. With the Universe being 13.7 billion years old, the earth being 4.8 billion years old, it’s unlikely that there are not plants where intelligent, technologically advanced life would not have evolved before ours.

[@6ThreeSided9]

This makes a lot of sense! Kipping has changed my view on this issue

[@kurtisengle6256]

"Nick Lane: The electrical origins of life" A talk delivered in 2023 by Nick Lane, Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London. If he is right, life happens automatically on any wet, rocky world. Water sinks into the ground, finds hot rock, experiences chemistry, and then rises. Forming a thermel vent. Full of chemistry, and billions of 'cells' in the extremely complicated micro passagways. Some of these cells get the right nutrients to, well, don't let me spoil it. It's an hour you won't want back. One of the best lectures I have seen.

[@R1door]

Ah yes… this is the Ying Yang we need…

[@sidpomy]

In a universe that will support life for at least dozens of trillions of years (maybe longer), and couldn't support life for the first several billion, it's safe to say we are EXTREMELY early to the game. It is feasible we could be the first in this galaxy, and one of the first in the entire universe.

[@avenuePad]

That's statistically absurd. Alone in the galaxy is debatable, but still a hot take. Alone in the universe is preposterous.

[@MyLifeInVideos]

That would make us the great old ones . Or we will become the precursors.

[@tuomasronnberg5244]

​@@avenuePadWhat are the figures you base your opinion on? I did some napkin calculations and discovered that if you set the probability of intelligent life emerging just a couple orders of magnitude lower, then we being the only ones in the local galaxy cluster is entirely likely, and the only ones in the observed universe within a realm of possibility.

[@SirAntoniousBlock]

That's a nice little neatly arranged division that is utterly at odds with everything we know about life, it is haphazard ad hoc, sometimes exploding when circumstances are favourable and being annihilated when not.

[@sidsuspicious]

@@avenuePad Absurd, Debatable, Hot Take, Preposterous... I myself prefer to go with an honest answer like, I don't know... & the best bit is, neither do you.

[@erichschinzel6486]

Excellent ...

[@ericb2017]

that makes total sense actually.. either very very low or very very high!

[@Mokkalol]

holy shit JMG and Kipping. amazing duo

[@ImBarryScottCSS]

It's a fascinating subject and one I've long agreed with David on. It seems to me that intelligent life is very very rare, but that once it develops it spreads quite easily. I find it very difficult to envisage a filter that could totally prevent our growth at this point. So the most likely of the unlikely answers? We're the first.

[@vermasean]

Super excited about this one!!! Two top tier people in the ‘Space’ 🌌 ❤️

[@WCO3]

Two of my favorite Stellar youtubers.❤

[@rwarren58]

Dr. Kipping! His story of the first race to achieve sentience stays with me. 💫

[@kazzag7430]

Just became a bit sad that there's nothing to watch from CoolWorlds after watching their latest video and then I saw this! I haven't even started the video but I like it already!

[@mialotusmusic]

YES two of my favorites together!!! 🤩

[@robotaholic]

Dr. Kipping please come on more! Never enough!

[@charlessimons1692]

u guys rock!

[@StefenTower]

Seriously - I don't rule out a galactic empire, so to speak. We don't have the data to do that. All we've done is effectively take weak core samples of planets somewhat near us. We can't yet see all the planets around most of the stars we've considered. We've mostly just looked at transits. When you consider that any civilization even slightly more advanced than us wouldn't be blasting radio comms like we do, combined with our utter (current) inability to detect a civilization, combined with the possibility that most life could be on moons rather than planets... we cannot say we are not indeed surrounded by a galactic "community". Note: I highly doubt there could even be a galaxy-wide empire. But a galaxy practically full of civilizations? That actually is possible. We could be in the middle of a community that is just becoming aware that we're here (due to light emissions showing changes in our atmosphere due to our technological development). Before then, aliens could detect there was life for a very long time. So if I had to guess, given we are inside that community, we've been the equivalent of a natural forest or zoo that aliens have no reason to visit except for maybe a rare science expedition. But when they detect a smart entity is here, then their interest may well be piqued. Bottom line is they will know we're here before we find any of them. And we're now detectible out to 100-150 light years.

[@thomasglebe1273]

There is not ONE piece of evidence of ANY life beyond Earth, let alone intelligent life. Talk of galactic civilizations is science FICTION. Scientists should not be in the business of wishful thinking. That's mainly what I hear any time these two "scientists" get together. To hear them talk about "being optimistic" is ridiculous. That's not science, it's religion.

[@keithking1985]

I love how to have life of any kind in the universe it's described as someone creating.

[@free2befree]

Also.. Dr. CoolWorlds is the hero we need!

[@apollo9543]

God damn, the intellectual horsepower on display here is mesmerizing. Gripped from start to finish, fantastic vid!

[@musbiq]

One civilization every 1 billion year in the universe? This is depressing and scary too!

[@happyhammer1]

All I saw was the title and I instantly knew who the guest was. One of my all time favorites.

[@benhilder8088]

Amazing conversation. Two humans asking questions. I think thats how we got here.

[@Hyrum_Critchlow]

I freaking love listening to these two

[@Flosseveryday]

I feel my consciousness expand infinitely when I listen to conversations like these.

[@benmathews2762]

When two of your favorite channels come together in one video 🤌

[@chairde]

We are the first and the galaxy is ours.

[@mattparker9726]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="838">13:58</a> that's a GIANT assumption. If a civilization existed 5 million years ago, how would you know? Between volcanism, weather, flooding, tectonic activity in general, what would even be left?

[@user-og5fc5rt8g]

I love David