The Fermi Paradox

The Fermi Paradox is a fascinating argument…it basically says, if the probability of life is so high in this universe, as it appears to be, where are all the other civilizations?  Why is there no evidence of their existence?  It’s a puzzle for sure, especially as more and more planets are found orbiting other stars.  We’ve already discovered 861, and scientists estimate there are about 100-400 billion planets in this galaxy, of which at least 17 billion are Earth-sized (not all of those habitable).  Well, there’s a great article on IO9 (click here) that details eleven possible answers to the Fermi Paradox.  My favorite – though it’s also the scariest – is that we’re living inside a sort of computer simulation, one that just wasn’t created to have the same level of detail in the entire universe.