This week’s episode revisits the Fermi Paradox, the question that launched a thousand scientific papers! To recap, this paradox takes its name from Erico Fermi, the physicist who helped build the first nuclear reactor and one of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project. In 1950, during a lunchtime conversation with colleagues, Fermi famously asked: “Where is everybody?” (aka. where are all the aliens?)
One proposed resolution is the idea that the conditions for life are far more stringent than we think. When it comes to astrobiology, scientists tend to be optimistic, thinking that rocky planets with fluffy atmospheres that orbit within their suns’ habitable zones have everything they need to give rise to life. But using Earth as a template, things like plate tectonics, a large moon, a large gas giant in the outer reaches of the system, and other factors may be necessary.
If this is true, then life (and, by extension, intelligent life) is likely to be rarer than previously thought. Perhaps that’s why we’re not hearing from any of them! Check out the links below to hear more.
Stories by Williams 
My favorite response to the Rare Earth Hypothesis is the Rare Titan Hypothesis. Imagine it turns out that there is intelligent life on Titan. The Titanians might look at their world, which is so utterly unique in the Solar System, and conclude that Titan-like worlds must be extremely rare… vanishingly rare… so rare that Titanian civilization might be alone in the universe.
I’m willing to agree that Earth-like worlds must be extremely rare. Vanishingly rare, even. But to say a planet must be exactly like Earth in order to develop intelligent life? To me, that sounds like telling an aspiring author that you have to do everything exactly like Stephen King did, or you can’t possibly become a successful author.
I was actually just on a panel with a radiation safety specialist from the Fermi Institute today. We were talking about the best science fiction movies of 2023. Talk about a weird coincidence.