If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life

by Stephen Webb

Until this explosion of creativity the three extant hominid species appear to have been equally stagnant. Why the sudden change for us humans? There are several possible explanations. Perhaps the development of language triggered the creative explosion. Perhaps the explosion occurred much earlier, but artifacts prior to 40,000 years ago weren’t well preserved. Perhaps the humans of more than 40,000 years ago were anatomically modern, but lacked a modern brain. Perhaps cultural knowledge accumulated slowly until, 40,000 years ago, it passed a critical threshold. Perhaps the exceptionally long stage of human child development, and the play that children engage in, enabled humans to envision their environment in new and creative ways. Perhaps a constellation of factors was involved. We don’t know. But if whatever caused this explosion of creativity was a fluke, an accident, then we might expect the number of communicating ETCs to be small.