Can SETI Succeed?

Interesting debate on the chance of success in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The late Ernst Mayr of Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology argues that the Earth is probably the only technological civilization in our galaxy, while Carl Sagan defends the more optimistic view.

One of Mayr's interesting hypothesis in the article which doesn't bode too well for us:

... high intelligence is not at all favored by natural selection, contrary to what we would expect. In fact, all the other kinds of living organisms, ... read more millions of species, get along fine without high intelligence.