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Friday, September 22, 2:10-3:00 p.m, CUE 203
Louis Irwin
Plateau, Collapse, and Climax: The Past and Future of Life in the Universe
Abstract
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Three patterns of evolution have recurred over nearly 4 billion years of
life on Earth. Different organisms most often have either collapsed or
reached a plateau of persistence through time with little change.
Occasionally, radically new forms have emerged from climactic
transitions. If this is a general pattern for the way biological
complexity evolves anywhere, reasonable predictions about the nature of
life on other worlds with a known planetary history can be made. The
recent co-evolution of intelligence (which has evolved independently
several times) with technology has precipitated one of the most radical
transitions in the history of life, with resulting implications for the
Fermi Paradox.
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