I find it very frustrating you not been able to understand my point. Why bring up the animal example of life on Earth?
My whole argument rests on the case that intelligent technological civilizations may be rare in the galaxy, not animal life which may be in abundance in more places than we can imagine. The universe may be teeming with Microbial life, and in some suitable places, even complex animal life, It's homo sapiens like intelligence I'm arguing may be extremely rare, Earth like homo sapiens, get it?
And what I find increadibly frustrating is that you simply keep on
asserting that this is true without actually addressing the arguments made against it.
Let me spell it out, again: there is no difference
in kind between human intelligence and the intelligence of other animals on the earth. If it is possible for
that kind of intelligence to evolve elsewhere, then it is possible for our kind of intelligence to evolve, because they are the
same kind. The difference is one of degree.
Now, if you want to say, "no, it is a difference in kind." then go ahead and show it. Joe and I have both given examples of animal intelligence that is similar to human intelligence in many ways. Of course we are able to do some things with our intelligence that they are not: just like Micheal Jordan can do some things with his body that I can't, but those differences flow from a difference in the degree of intelligence.
Their brains have neurons. They work by the same principles. Ours are bigger and a little more complex, but there is nothing in evolutionary biology that makes the evolution of human-like intelligence from crow-like intelligence impossible.
In fact, given that it's happened once, it necessarily
is possible. So we have to move to the question of whether or not it's
probable, and how probable or improbable it is.
On that, I don't know, though I think the fact that lineages other than our own have evolved from less intelligence to more intelligence suggests that it isn't all that improbable. Nevertheless, I'm willing to admit to not having much to go on here. But as I've said before, neither do you. And if you
claim to know, you'll need to do something to back that up.
And if you want to just say, again, "Human intelligence is very rare in the universe, though animal intelligence may not be", then you will have to give
some sort of argument as to what it is that makes our intelligence particularly different from other animals, and what gives you confidence that it is particularly unlikely to evolve.