3 ms·

And yet Sagan was one of the biggest promoters of the “Drake Equation” which takes advantage of the fact that humans are really bad at very large and very small

And yet Sagan was one of the biggest promoters of the “Drake Equation” which takes advantage of the fact that humans are really bad at very large and very small numbers to make it seem like alien civilizations, of which we have never had any evidence of, are widespread throughout the universe. This was just baloney wrapped in numbers.

new_realist 7y ago
I think you misspelled “hypothesis.”
mikeash 7y ago
The Drake Equation is perfectly reasonable. You just have to interpret it as “these assumptions imply aliens” rather than “there are definitely aliens.”
- bnegreve 7y ago
  It is not, because at least 3 factors of the equation are incredibly difficult to estimate. About as difficult as estimating the probability of an alien encounter. So the equation is basically useless.
  - mikeash 7y ago
    And what’s the term for a figure that’s hard to estimate but which you guess at anyway? An “assumption.”
    - bnegreve 7y ago
      Yes, and in this case, an unreasonable one.
whatshisface 7y ago
The Drake Equation doesn't imply anything about the number of aliens in the universe, you can get any answer you want by putting in values for each of the factors.
throwaway66920 7y ago
I think the Drake equation is fine if you accept that even von Neumann probes are basically impossible to achieve. Space is simply too hard for everything.