Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. To investigate intelligent life-in-the-Universe one needs to look at whether the trait of ‘intelligence’ is something that Mother Nature, via biological evolutionary mechanisms, will be selected for. Does intelligence have survival value? We’d say ‘yes’ because we’re intelligent and we exist. However, when viewing all the species of life that currently are and have been, well, we’re a fluke – an intelligent fluke but that very intelligence makes us that fluke of nature nonetheless. Based on terrestrial sampling, Extraterrestrial Intelligence (ETI) will be equally somewhat a cosmic fluke, hence rare.
It’s been pointed out by others, and based on my readings I tend to have to agree, that astronomers (physical scientists) tend to be much more optimistic and supportive of the notion that advanced life forms in the Universe (extraterrestrial intelligence) are a dime-a-dozen relative to biologists (life scientists), who hedge their bets and who it must be said are presumably better qualified to pass judgments. So, taking things from a more biological perspective, what’s what?
Anyway, once you have multicellular critters that have survived and thrived in a reasonably stable part of the Universe over many generations, will they evolve intelligence? I mean finding an extraterrestrial equivalent of a trilobite is all well and good, but we want to find beings more like ourselves.
IMHO, intelligence, the ability to figure things out, has evolutionary survival value and will tend to be selected for, and thus over time, there will tend to have evolved life forms with ever higher IQ’s. Here on Earth, just about all mammals and birds, and some exceptional invertebrates (the cephalopods like squid and the octopus), have reasonable IQ’s at least when compared to bacteria, plants, insects, fish, etc. Of course just as some kinds of organisms are faster than others, or have keener senses of sight or smell or hearing, not all advanced organisms are going to end up equal in the IQ stakes. But, the fact remains, the ability to think, to figure things out, can only increase your odds of survival and leaving behind more offspring.
However, if the evolution of intelligence were the be-all-and-end-all to ensuring survival and being fruitful and multiplying, then your everyday household moggy would be catching mice through pure intellectual genius and setting down moggy-made mousetraps – and the ever evolving intelligent mice avoiding the cat by figuring out what the cat was planning!
No, there are many evolutionary pathways to success and survival and reproducing. In the case of the moggy, evolving faster reflexes, being able to run faster for longer durations, evolving ever more acute hearing and vision – well that’s probably going to ultimately catch more mice than pure brainpower.
So, yes, intelligence will be selected for, but that trait is in serious competition with other traits in terms of ensuring that you live long and prosper. Just like there are many roles or occupations humans play and work at in society, not all roles or occupations are equal in ensuring success and longevity, yet maximizing whatever abilities you have at least give you the maximum odds that whatever role or occupation you have will ensure you have the maximum chance of living long and living in prosperity.
While humans are currently top of the pops in the I.Q. stakes, it’s been speculated by at least one evolutionary biologist/vertebrate palaeontologist (Dale Russell) that had that asteroid not wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, well there might now be dinosaurs on the Moon. One dinosaur-critter in particular, called Stenonychosaurus or Troodon (dinosaur names can change as quickly as the seasons) had all the right sorts of attributes, large brain size, manipulative digits, upright posture, that with just enough evolutionary tweaking... Well, that asteroid came along and as a result we landed on the Moon, not the dinosaurs.
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