Is the development of agriculture a valid marker to be used along with Kardashev's scale to measure the progress of any civilisation?

The Kardashev scale is based on the usage of energy; it could be argued that agriculture provides food and that is energy for survival. In this way, we could say that agriculture is a way to obtain energy but does the fact that it has worked as such for civilisations on Earth could mean the same on any inhabited exoplanet?

According to the scale's own principles, we can assume that any civilisation would develop incrementally better methods designed to obtain energy from the environment. Getting food - energy - by cultivation came, in our case, as a development posterior to hunting, fishing and gathering. Thus, we could say that at least in our own case agriculture was the fourth method of getting energy by humankind after gathering, hunting, and fishing. Of course, the chain does not necessarily stops there, and so fifth, sixth, seventh methods, and of course, many more, could also be developed over time. It would probably be rather difficult to establish which one of the three other methods was developed firstly by our ancestors as a rational endeavour, but surely enough, we can say that there is an order in which energy-fetching methods are developed. The characteristics of each method within that order will probably depend on environmental conditions in each planet, but indeed, an order will be there.

Of course, these methods have to be the result of intelligence, and not just instinct; animals do hunt, fish and gather, but the difference between doing so instinctively or intelligently resides in the use of tools: A basket or bag for gathering, spears, bows and arrows for hunting, etc. The use of apparent strategies might or might not indicate intelligence, for animals that do show an apparently strategic thinking are, as far as we know, incapable of reasoning, like certain spiders that instead of producing a regular web produce nets that they use to actually catch their prey. They even make collimation marks on the ground using their own faeces, and the whole thing, seen superficially, resembles quite an intelligent behaviour, but it isn't. However, other animals like dolphins that catch sardines in the coast of Namibia, do show true strategic thinking, and some sharks found in the area also seem to actually learn from the dolphins. So, strategies might or might not indicate intelligence, but the use of tools certainly does.

So, it would be very imprudent to say that exactly the same succession of methods would take place in the case of a budding civilisation in an exoplanet. Here on Earth we can fish because we have fish, but that might or might not be the case elsewhere. Neither fish nor anything with a similar niche in an exotic ecosystem absolutely needs to exist. Perhaps rocks are fished in other planets, or perhaps nothing. What we do know is that there is a succession of methods there, and that these methods are characterised by an increased efficiency. Their development is fuelled by some sort of technological progress, and not just evolutionary adaptations in a strictly biological sense.

But maybe there is an exception and one of the forms of manipulation of energy is truly universal or at least very common: controlling fire. The odds of survival of any species with an incipient development of intelligence increase enormously just by learning how to manipulate fire, not just because it will help them survive against certain environmental factors like cold weather, a likely scenario in most Earth-like planets located around stars, in their habitable zones, but for industrial reasons: Controlling fire is a likely method to develop a basic metallurgic capability.

Source: Andinia.com

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