Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

[NickB79]

4. We always assume that intelligence is a forgone conclusion in evolution

When in reality it's not. Earth had highly advanced, multicellular species, none of which evolved to the point of intelligence, on it for 500 MILLION years before humans evolved. Dinosaurs had a 150 million year run, yet we have no fossil record of intelligent dinosaurs using tools or building cities.

Modern-day chimps, elephants, dolphins, octopi and whales all have levels of intelligence approaching sentience, yet none of them are anywhere near the ability to build technology to explore the galaxy or even communicate with other worlds. The smartest ones, the dolphins and whales, may never be able to advance further due to their aquatic environment restricting things like tool use, the inability to use fire, etc.

Native Americans inhabited the Americas for 15,000 years and never even developed the ability to forge metals like their counterparts in Europe and Asia did. Yet they had very advanced, culturally rich civilizations. If the Black Death had hypothetically mutated and wiped out all human life in Europe, Asia and Africa, would the American survivors have EVER developed modern tech and space travel? Would they have even developed wooden sailing ships to explore the now-depopulated continents of their own planet? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps they would have just contently lived their lives for another million years before going extinct for some reason.

The development of an advanced, space-faring species depends on so many factors, many of them random and rare, that it wouldn't surprise me if we were relatively lonely in this galaxy.