The Fermi Paradox re-visited chapter 2 · Sunday March 15, 2026 by colin newell
I recently realized I hadn’t written much in this blog about the Fermi Paradox, though I do write about it elsewhere. So here is a quick note.
The Fermi Paradox, sometimes paraphrased as “where are they?” is a question about the apparent lack of intelligent alien life in the universe. The universe is extreme old relative to the speed of light at galactic scales. Light has been able to cross our galaxy a thousand times since the dinosaurs died out, and that was relatively recent (less than 2%) compared to the age of the Earth. So if life is common in the universe (it seems like it might be) and if intelligent life is an eventually winning strategy of evolution (it seems to be) and technological life follows from this (it has at least once) and technology leads relatively quickly to space travel and visible technosignatures (this is probably not the hard part) then why isn’t the universe teeming with alien life?
There are a bunch of potential solutions to this puzzle. I’ll mention a few before I get to my preferred one.
We haven’t looked very carefully.
Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
We have only relatively tiny telescopes on one tiny planet looking out into a vast darkness. We have found only a few thousand exoplanets, of which just a handful might be able to support life. We have not a single spectra from an exoplanet atmosphere. Our nearest star Proxima Centauri has planets and we know almost nothing about them. For all we know, there’s already an advanced civilization there and we would not be able to see it. We’ve run various SETI searches for a few decades but again, barely scratched the surface. We could build much larger telescopes but even one the size of the Earth would hardly rule out intelligent life in our galaxy – much of which is obscured by dust.
At our current rate of technology, we’re not going to discover intelligent aliens unless they’re very close by and sending us very powerful radio signals, or they visit us directly.
Interstellar travel might be impossible.
The Fermi Paradox among us · Sunday March 15, 2026 by colin newell
When confronted with the topic of stars and galaxies, a question that tantalizes most humans is, “Is there other intelligent life out there?” Let’s put some numbers to it—
As many stars as there are in our galaxy (100 – 400 billion), there are roughly an equal number of galaxies in the observable universe—so for every star in the colossal Milky Way, there’s a whole galaxy out there. All together, that comes out to the typically quoted range of between 1022 and 1024 total stars, which means that for every grain of sand on every beach on Earth, there are 10,000 stars out there.
The science world isn’t in total agreement about what percentage of those stars are “sun-like” (similar in size, temperature, and luminosity)—opinions typically range from 5% to 20%. Going with the most conservative side of that (5%), and the lower end for the number of total stars (1022), gives us 500 quintillion, or 500 billion billion sun-like stars.
There’s also a debate over what percentage of those sun-like stars might be orbited by an Earth-like planet (one with similar temperature conditions that could have liquid water and potentially support life similar to that on Earth). Some say it’s as high as 50%, but let’s go with the more conservative 22% that came out of a recent PNAS study. That suggests that there’s a potentially-habitable Earth-like planet orbiting at least 1% of the total stars in the universe—a total of 100 billion billion Earth-like planets.
So there are 100 Earth-like planets for every grain of sand in the world. Think about that next time you’re on the beach.
Moving forward, we have no choice but to get completely speculative. Let’s imagine that after billions of years in existence, 1% of Earth-like planets develop life (if that’s true, every grain of sand would represent one planet with life on it). And imagine that on 1% of those planets, the life advances to an intelligent level like it did here on Earth. That would mean there were 10 quadrillion, or 10 million billion intelligent civilizations in the observable universe.
Logic and reason requires critical thinking skills. · Saturday September 4, 2021 by colin newell
In a time rife with disasters, simmering regional conflicts, global warming, and out of control fires, when more people than ever can find an audience online, conspiracy theories seem to be growing more silly by the day.
We’re also more prone to believing such things under heightened stress, and there is no shortage of troubling issues confronting us, whether locally or globally.
Some conspiracy theorists pride themselves on being “critical freethinkers,” but a new study showing a trend between lower critical thinking skills and increased conspiracy theory belief suggests this may not be the case.
“Conspiracy theories refer to attempts to explain the ultimate cause of an important event (social, political, climatic, etc.), by accusing a hidden coalition of perceived malicious and powerful people or organizations of having secretly planned and implemented these events,” explain Paris Nanterre University psychologist Anthony Lantian and team in their paper.
Across two studies, the researchers assessed the critical thinking skills of 338 undergraduate students using a French version of the Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test. They then scored the students’ tendencies towards conspiracy beliefs and their personal assessment of their own critical thinking skills.
Critical thinking – the objective analysis and evaluation of a situation – requires a collection of cognitive skills. These include the ability to discern relevant versus irrelevant information, think systematically, seeing other perspectives, recognizing and avoiding logical fallacies, look beyond the obvious, be aware of and avoid biases and changing your mind in light of new evidence.
“The more people believe in conspiracy theories, the worse they perform on a critical thinking ability test,” Lantian told Eric Dolan from PsyPost. “This test is characterized by an open-ended format highlighting several areas of critical thinking ability in the context of argumentation.”
Before anyone gets all superior and self righteous around this, we must keep in mind that some people may not have had opportunities to obtain or develop these skills. This doesn’t mean they’re any less intelligent, just that their lives have not as yet taken them on the critical thinking skill acquiring path. But it’s never too late to learn. Good thing!
The researchers didn’t find any evidence for a higher (or lower) subjective critical thinking ability (as opposed to that evaluated more objectively by the test) among those who subscribe more to conspiracy theories.
“This is not in line with the cliché of the conspiracy theorists who see themselves as critical thinkers,” Lantian said.
All this is not to say those with high critical thinking skills can’t also be sucked into believing things that may not necessarily align with reality. The way our thinking is wired as an obligatorily social species makes us very vulnerable to believing those we identify with as part of our own cultural group – no matter how much education we have had that boosts science literacy.
Trust plays a massive role in who we believe; we also have a tendency to believe each of us is above average at detecting misinformation. And that is a clear case of self deception if there ever was one!
Researchers have also linked this need to feel special to greater belief in conspiracies. This is the classic, “I know something that you don’t!” Or, “There is this guy that has a YouTube channel that knows stuff that no one else knows!”
Lantian and team point out that while their study suggests critical thinking lowers people’s chances of believing in unfounded conspiracy theories, the findings don’t determine if these skills can help people detect true conspiracies.
Photo above: Our COVID-19 journey has been rife with speculation and a lively source for “conspiracy theorization”, in part, because of the elements of calamity, the “perceived” volumes of unanswered questions, the complexity of the varied impacts on society and so on.
Furthermore, the uniformity of their sample population (all French-speaking undergraduates) means these findings may not necessarily be an accurate reflection across wider society, nor have the researchers demonstrated a causal relationship.
However, previous research has also suggested more highly educated people are less prone to conspiracy beliefs. Another study, specifically designed by Yale University psychologist Dan Kahan and team to untangle within-group bias from levels of understanding, found similar results: Participants who scored highest in science comprehension – which requires critical thinking skills – displayed higher scores in independent thinking.
Kahan and colleagues have also found that curiosity can play an incredibly powerful role in counteracting within-group biases by leading people to consume “a richer diet of information”.
Lantian and team conclude in their paper that “critical thinking ability could help individuals to seek contradictory evidence rather than blindly trusting a conspiracy theory as long as it challenges an established version.”
They hope that this and further research on the topic will help develop better ways to teach more people these vital skills. Critical thinking, along with fostering curiosity and a sense of belonging and community to counteract the forces of cultural biases, may help us nudge each other back towards a smarter and wiser reality.
Elements of this research was published in Applied Cognitive Psychology.
Your web writer, Colin Newell, has lived on the radical Wet Coast of North America and has been writing stuff, totally believable stuff, since 1996!
The Leeming Effect - stop dragging my timeline around · Sunday April 11, 2021 by colin newell
Around two decades ago I was in the parking lot at the University of Victoria – likely on a Saturday – doing some extra chores.
I finished up about mid-day and was about to set off for some downtown routine to-do items when a strange man appeared in front of my car. He was quite distinguished and around 60 years old – give or take.
I tapped the brake to a stop and he stood by the drivers side window as I rolled it down.
“Hello…” I said, if offering some help to someone appearing very lost.
“Hello…” he paused, and continued. “Do you know someone by the name of John Smith?”
“Why yes, I do…” relieved that this interaction was about to start making sense.
The man looked up over the hood into the sunshine, squinting and paused for around 30 more seconds.
He then returned his very serious looking gaze to me. Another pause of around 30 seconds began. This time the seconds seemed to tick by much more slowly.
“You have coffee at the Finnerty Express most weekdays do you not?” he pointed out with crystal clarity.
I now felt like I was having a very cautious conversation with a CSIS officer.
“Uhm, yes… yes I do… and…”, I slipped back into the conversation.
He then addressed me by name, which surprised me. “Colin, you are Colin, yes? I shall see you for coffee next week…”
He turned on his heel and vanished as quickly as he appeared.
I had a funny feeling that his presence manifested itself at that moment to impede my progress downtown.
In some small (or profound) way he was interfering with the passage of time or my timeline, that if not interrupted, would have lead to some major or minor catastrophe.
These are regular (I guess if you can call them that…) encounters with regular people who, for the moment, are a form of guardian angel arriving just in a nick of time to prevent something really bad from happening.
And yes, the very next week, “David” appeared for coffee – and has appeared for coffee ever week (vacations occasionally interrupting) since that fateful encounter 20 years ago.
Today a young man stopped me at the Root Cellar farmers market in the very same fashion.
He was drawn to a very special sweat shirt that I was wearing. It was the classic blue sweatshirt from the very old and no longer in existence Victoria College from well before 1963! I won’t include the entire conversation (and for the record I was in no hurry…) but he had so many questions.
So this is what it felt like to be a pop star encountering a fan that I could simply not shake. But in this instance, the shirt was the attraction.
He was with his wife or girlfriend but it seemed that the Victoria College shirt took center stage.
Nothing mattered but the shirt I was wearing.
Within a minute or so of answering a barrage of questions, the answers to which he did not appear to be absorbing, I broke away to go through my grocery shortlist.
Within a minute he re-appeared and the questions began again. I quietly and calmly answered and then satisfied, he returned to his shopping… as if nothing had happened.
In an odd coincidence, the elderly man at the beginning of this story was a Victoria College student and a faculty member!
I could not help feeling that I’d just had some kind of alien encounter – but in a good way. I mean, I am, by and large, a science guy, but very occasionally, lost in the glint of bright sunlight or hidden in the shadows of a rainy Victoria afternoon, rests something very likely between science… and the Twilight Zone…
Colin Newell lives and works in Victoria B.C. Canada and has been writing about coffee and food culture for what feels like an eternity…
Long lost Gibson Guitar Les Paul Gold top stolen from ago · Sunday March 21, 2021 by colin newell
A very long time ago (1985) I was a Gibson guitar player – The Gibson Les Paul guitars are awesome for Rock, Blues, Jazz, pretty much whatever you want to play.
And I played this one in a few eighties bands… in a life a long time ago.
That said, I was not a big fan of this for some reason. It might have been the colour or the weight.
Ah, the weight! It was like carrying around a large dog draped around your shoulder – like a Lab or a Bull Mastiff -
The sound of the Gibson Les Paul is unmistakable – it snarled like a cornered tiger and effortlessly took charge of any musical performance it was involved with.
But the weight got me down… literally… and one day I sold it to a notable and successful gigging musician and session player. That was in 1990.
The new owner traveled the World with it – and the old Gibson took on a new life of its own. Click photo for bigger view
Then one day in 1992, it was in the locked trunk of of the owner, “Sean’s” 1980 Buick in underground, gated parking beneath the Seagate Apartments on Esquimalt Rd. He came home after an afternoon practice and had left it for around two hours before he had to head out to another practice. Two hours in a locked basement garage. It could have been an inside job, an unscrupulous neighbour… someone that clearly did not appreciate the fact that this particular guitar playing fellows livelihood depended on those 6 stringed instruments. Guitar be gone.
Anyway – occasionally I make a shout out to the World about this missing guitar – likely in the wrong hands, maybe getting played, maybe not or in the hands of someone that is not aware that it is hot.
Click Photo for a bigger view.
Anyway – here is the picture of the guitar stolen years ago – and somewhere out there, this guitar is waiting to come home to its owner. If you see it, please send it on its way.
The original owner thanks you!
This was a 1971 or 1972 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe with hard case stolen from the Seagate Apartment parking lot in 1992. The serial number is 171568 –
Any intel on this item would likely be rewarded with cash or whole bean coffee! Or both!
