One in Five Stars Has Earth-sized Planet in Habitable Zone

[hunter]

62. There is no intelligent life on those planets, just like Earth.

I figure the instant a species becomes intelligent it ascends into some kind of cosmic creators' club. Maybe industrialization reduces the odds that a species will become intelligent.

For all we know a mess of earth species have already achieved intelligence and taken the first train out of this universe; various avian/dinosaur species, various cetacean species, giant squids, Neanderthals, Fungi, could have been anything...

Maybe these giant fungi were intelligent and left the planet a long time ago:



http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/07/070423.fungus.shtml

It could be that our branch of Homo sapiens is never going to achieve intelligence and we'll be stuck here until we become extinct. That's the inevitable fate of most species. Every species and every individual being living today has ancestors going back all the way to the beginning of life on earth, but that's no guarantee they'll survive past tomorrow. It doesn't even change the odds.

Bummer for humans that we may never experience any kind of true intelligence, but while we live we can keep striving for it.