The Drake equation gets too much attention in the popular press . First, the selection of factors is an arbitrary choice of basis that may not relate to what we

The Drake equation gets too much attention in the popular press . First, the selection of factors is an arbitrary choice of basis that may not relate to what we can measure and second, we don't have good ideas of the values of most of those factors. It's a mental exercise and useful for showing certain concepts, but not a prediction based on observable data.