Tea at Trianon: Is Intelligent Life a Fluke?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, December 5, 2020

Is Intelligent Life a Fluke?

From Yahoo News:

Humans could well be alone in the observable universe, a statistical study has suggested. The evolution of intelligent life is a wildly improbable fluke, research by Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute showed. The researchers said that the unlikeliness of the series of “evolutionary transitions” that led to intelligent life means it is likely to be “exceptionally rare”. They believe that there is between a 53% and 96% chance that humans are alone in our Milky Way galaxy, Discover magazine reported. Aliens may have once existed, but could already have been wiped out, the researchers said. Anders Sandberg, of the Future of Humanity Institute, said: “An empty sky doesn’t mean we are doomed.” (Read more.)

julygirl said...: Interesting. On another note, what is not a fluke regarding intelligence is statistically there is a 'regression to the mean' which, as I get older, seems to be rampant. Either I am getting smarter or the 'mean' is getting dumber, or, I went to school when students were really being educated.; December 5, 2020 at 3:10:00 PM EST