I like to read about the recent progress in the understanding of our Universe. Thirteen billion years old, still expanding.billions of galaxies,trillions of stars. Astronomers speculate there must be planets orbiting these stars. Many must be rocky planets, similar to our Earth. Such planets have already been discovered.

It naturally follows that there is now a question out there: Is there life in the universe other than here on Earth?

Radio telescopes now scan the sky,hoping to detect some signal which would have a pattern or sequence which could only have been sent by ET.

I usually see the question: "Is there intelligent life out there?"

I have another question,though.Is there intelligent life here on earth?

The answer is "Yes".

The Bottlenose Dolphin, for one.Solving problems, innovating and communicating.

Look to see emotions? Sadness? Grief? Panic? Contentment? Watch the Elephant.

Want to see planning, collaboration,anticipation? See the Chimpanzee.

Witness bonding,recognition,eagerness,happiness? Follow the Wild Dog of Africa.

Africa is a long way to go? Become a Biology student and carefully observe the behaviour of Crows.

From Wikipedia, I get,

"Intelligence has been defined in many different ways; such as, capacity for logic, abstract thought, understanding, self-awareness, communication, learning, emotion, knowledge, memory, planning, creativity and problem solving. It can also be more generally described as the ability to perceive and/or retain knowledge and apply it...."

OK,I have not mentioned humans, yet.Should Homo sapiens be held up as an example of intelligent life on planet Earth?

Consider the following:

Homo can easily be persuaded to firmly believe, en masse,the most preposterous, bizarre, ludicrous,fantabulous lierature.These ideas will be tenaciously defended, not just in the forum of debate,but by the most brutal, vicious actions imaginable.

Homo can be indoctrinated, hypnotized,"brain-washed", by the millions, often by one member of their population.Seemingly bereft of any power of individual thought, the population,"Lemming-like" follows blindly, in the manner of the Kamikaze,to their inevitable destruction.

Only Homo can distort, ignore,deny the most clearly and repeatedly demonstrable factual knowledge.No number of schools, colleges and Universities can seemingly make a dent in this issue.

Only Homo has what appears to be an immense capacity for denial.We are experts at this mechanism.

So we have evolved a large brain. Almost as large as the Bottlenose Dolphin.

Unfortunately,for planet Earth and its other inhabitants,we are no longer confined to an aquatic existence.Homo's remote ancestors made it to the dry land.Then,the pressures of environmental change and the inexorable forces of natural selection, by serendipidy and blind chance.led to bipedalism and apposing grasp.[thumb and fingers]

Bad outcome, it appears.

Homo's numbers are now 7 billion and counting.

Earth has been in trouble before. Glaciation,volcanism,giant meteors, caused mass extinctions.

Unless one of these comes first, it appears that Homo sapiens,with the big brain,will be the final, global, calamity.