07.+What+is+Intelligence+(February+2006) - Get a Free Blog

What is Intelligence? 134
Of course, science abhors a vacuum, and so scientists have formed
opinions based on whichever set of proofs they like the sound of.
Asking for the received wisdom is rather like asking what length a
skirt should be. A couple of decades ago, the fashionable opinion
was that life is pretty hard to kick off, and thus probably not
widespread beyond Earth. These days it is more in vogue to say that
life is inevitable, and the universe is probably crawling with living
things.
What has changed, scientifically speaking, in those 20 years? Very
little. But using the mathematics of probability to reach your
conclusions happens to be all the rage. Given the vastness of the
universe, the diversity of its environments, and the fact that life has
certainly evolved once, you can argue that the chances are pretty
small that Earth is the only place life exists.
The fact remains, however, that the search for extraterrestrial
intelligence (SETI) operating out of the SETI Institute headquarters in
Mountain View, California, has found nothing conclusive in 40 years.
And Tau Ceti, a star system that was considered a frontrunner to
host life, was recently declared too comet-ridden. Even if we discover
life on Mars we cannot draw any conclusions because the Red
Planet regularly trades rocks with Earth.
Anyway, what kind of life do we mean? We don't know whether we
should be looking for the carbon-based life so familiar on Earth, or
some other form. And if we can't agree on a definition of life, and
what it might need to evolve and exist, the argument just gets
woollier and woollier. So, at the moment, it all seems to boil down to
a different question: do you want us to be alone?
Michael Brooks
The experts' choice
Although New Scientist came up with the 10 questions presented
here, we wanted to know what the experts think. So we canvassed
some of the world's leading biologists. Here is a selection of the
answers we received:
Chris Stringer
Palaeoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London,
UK. He is known for his work on the "Out of Africa" theory of human
origins
"I think the biggest unanswered question in biology is whether life is
unique to Earth. Evidence from Mars may help to answer this
question, even in the next few years. As for my own field, I think the
biggest question is: what was the last common ancestor of humans
and chimpanzees like? Knowing the answer would help solve many
questions about our origins. I would also like to discover the key
factors that led to the success of our species. Why are we here and
not people like the Neanderthals?"
Tom Kirkwood
Gerontologist at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He