Can the delayed evolution of humans on Earth help explain why we have not been visited by aliens?

[T]he Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and life began about 4 billion years ago, yet humans—the only intelligent, technological species we know of in the universe—have existed only for the last 200,000 years. Why didn’t we come sooner? What factor(s) delayed our appearance? And what can life’s timeline here say about the possibility of other technologically advanced lifeforms in the universe?

Many researchers [envision]  five: 1) the creation of single-celled life (“abiogenesis”), 2) the appearance of photosynthesis that creates oxygen, 3) the emergence of eukaryotic cells from prokaryotic cells, 4) the emergence of complex life, such as multicellular animals, and 5) the rise of Homo sapiens with an established language.

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So the question arises if intelligent, technological animals like us developed on Earth only late in the time available, [that’s] cutting it close. Would the same fate befall any advanced extraterrestrial life elsewhere in the galaxy? Might they have developed too late in their sun’s timespan to get to Earth? The hard steps model thus predicts that technological species such as humans on Earth are exceedingly rare in the universe.

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