Intelligent life on Earth

摘要

Christopher Lovell gave a fascinating statistical hitchhiker's guide to the Drake equation, Fermi's paradox, and the prospects for intelligent extraterrestrial civilisations ("Where is everybody?", page 24, December 2017). He concludes that a successful discovery would be one of humanity's greatest achievements, but failure might provide benefit too, as a reminder to protect our world from nuclear war and climate change. It was a timely point and a great article, but I wanted to add something: it is not only humanity that needs protection.