It is called the Astrobiological Copernican Principle because it makes the assumption that our existence is not special, that is, if the conditions in which intelligent life on Earth also developed somewhere else in the Galaxy then intelligent life would develop there in a similar way.

Christopher Conselice

This paper couldnt have been written a few years ago.

Christopher Conselice

Those are all big things that could change the answer by an order of magnitude.

Christopher Conselice

If we find a lot of them, thats a good sign that we might have a very long lifetime for our civilization.

Christopher Conselice

Our new research suggests that searches for extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations not only reveals the existence of how life forms, but also gives us clues for how long our own civilization will last, if we find that intelligent life is common then this would reveal that our civilization could exist for much longer than a few hundred years, alternatively if we find that there are no active civilizations in our Galaxy it is a bad sign for our own long-term existence. By searching for extraterrestrial intelligent life — even if we find nothing — we are discovering our own future and fate.

Christopher Conselice