4 ms·

I really dislike the drake equation because it's the epitome of bad science -- when someone enters value for the variables they have no idea what is reasonable,

I really dislike the drake equation because it's the epitome of bad science -- when someone enters value for the variables they have no idea what is reasonable, absolutely no idea -- is it 0.1 or 0.0000000000000000000000000000001 we have no way of knowing. Though I do like how it gets people to realize how small and insignificant we are in the grand scale that is the solar system, the reasoning we take to get there is fundamentally flawed. We use numbers that have everyday meaning to us, and of course it spits out nice results; this is flawed reasoning since we have no basis to think those numbers are even remotely correct. In general, I just think it's sloppy thinking that takes advantage of deficiencies in human thinking -- it's a magic trick.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
I really tried to be even-handed with my comment -- I didn't want to sound like a troll -- but you are completely correct. In fact, the Drake Equation is a religious statement. That is, it is a creative speculation using commonly understood symbols to that which are completely unknown to us. It's the same as a couple of cavemen sitting on a hill talking about thunder as being large rocks falling from a cliff in a faraway valley. It makes sense, it fits in with what we know, but it's really just a bunch of guesses connected with symbols that, based on context, we feel social approval towards. It's a mind-hack. And a very nicely executed one at that. The reason I didn't use the "R" word, religion, is that folks see that word and stop thinking. They give you an instinctual answer. No way! I'm not religious! etc. The Drake equation basically says what anybody who has looked up at the night sky knows intuitively: there are a lot of stars out there, and it's extremely unlikely that we're all by ourselves. It just does it in a way that makes us feel like we're receiving some sort of imparted scientific wisdom, instead of what it really is: creative speculation. In that sense the formula itself may be total bullshit scientifically, but what it tells us about how science and religion play with each other is very important. People look at it and just feel that there is some truth there, and there is, but it's not the same kind of truth as f=ma, although both statements are expressed mathematically and have the same air of seriousness around them.
- jerf 16y ago
  "The Drake equation basically says what anybody who has looked up at the night sky knows intuitively: there are a lot of stars out there, and it's extremely unlikely that we're all by ourselves." Further reinforcing your core point, it can also tell you that we are. You don't have to be that painfully conservative with the numbers to come with one or fewer per galaxy. For instance, 50% of stars having planets may be a brutal overestimate, a lot of stars are in multi-star systems or other situations in which there are no stable orbits, resulting in any initial planets getting ejected very quickly if they form at all. 2 Earth-like planets per star is a bold statement, depending on the exact definition of "Earth-like", we only have one in our system and if you read past the propaganda in the planet finding press releases they aren't coming up with all that many other "Earth like" planets yet. Yes, that's because they still can't see them, but the press releases convey a false sense of how the search is going when they do things like call a planet with a surface gravity of 3 or 4 G and a surface temperature beyond rock's liquification point a "Super-Earth". 10000 years is a bold estimate for how long a civ will be around and communicating, certainly. I actually am against the self-loathing that some circles find fashionable but 10,000 years is a long time. I consider these numbers generous and it still only comes up with 10. It's missing some terms, too. Irregular galaxies [1], approximately 25% of the galaxies out there, are thought to be entirely unable to support complex life because basically all the stars in such galaxies will take a system through a region of the galaxy with too much radiation and sterilize the planets every few tens of millions of years. I mean this only as an example, you can go on naming more fairly reasonable criteria that eliminate half or more stars from contention for quite a while (star types, star galactic orbits, other galaxy attributes, even before we get to planets we can eliminate a lot). To brutally abuse notation, the night sky is O(n^3) in size, if the probabilities of developing civilization are O(2^n)-type it doesn't matter how large the sky is. Big numbers fall fast when you multiply independent probabilities together, and it's not sophistication to just give up and declare there must be a lot of other civilizations out there; it's still a mathematical copout. We don't know. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregular_galaxy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregular_galaxy
  - bad_user 16y ago
    I agree with your poing, but Mars is earth-like and it could have carried life ... There is evidence that Mars once carried liquid water on its surface, it's formed out of the same materials (carbon, hydrogen, water) and had all the elements needed for life. Mars lost its liquid water because (contrary to earth) it lost its atmosphere because it also lacks active plate tectonics (also, contrary to earth). So our solar system has 2 earth-like planets ... with one that became a desert and died, but that was once very much like Earth, with some people still hoping to find microscopic life at the poles. That's not too shabby. Basically it is considered that if a planet holds liquid water, then it can carry life (liquid water implies other things, like the presence of an atmosphere). Bigger solar systems may contain even more earth-like planets, but I agree: an average of 2 is way too high. EDIT: Also, one other thing: if Mars wouldn't have lost its atmosphere, then oxygen would have spread faster than on earth, because the planet is smaller, which means the transition from microscopic life to macro would have been faster.
nollidge 16y ago
It's not bad science, though, because it's not science. It's not meant to be science. All Drake set out to do was establish an agenda for an NAS meeting in 1961 regarding extraterrestrial intelligence. It's a list of known unknowns. It was not arrived at via scientific experimentation, and was never claimed to have, so anyone calling it "science", even "bad science", is mislabeling it.
- jdp23 16y ago
  seems to me that an agenda for a major scientific meeting falls into the category of "science".

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

I really tried to be even-handed with my comment -- I didn't want to sound like a troll -- but you are completely correct. In fact, the Drake Equation is a religious statement. That is, it is a creative speculation using commonly understood symbols to that which are completely unknown to us. It's the same as a couple of cavemen sitting on a hill talking about thunder as being large rocks falling from a cliff in a faraway valley. It makes sense, it fits in with what we know, but it's really just a bunch of guesses connected with symbols that, based on context, we feel social approval towards. It's a mind-hack. And a very nicely executed one at that. The reason I didn't use the "R" word, religion, is that folks see that word and stop thinking. They give you an instinctual answer. No way! I'm not religious! etc. The Drake equation basically says what anybody who has looked up at the night sky knows intuitively: there are a lot of stars out there, and it's extremely unlikely that we're all by ourselves. It just does it in a way that makes us feel like we're receiving some sort of imparted scientific wisdom, instead of what it really is: creative speculation. In that sense the formula itself may be total bullshit scientifically, but what it tells us about how science and religion play with each other is very important. People look at it and just feel that there is some truth there, and there is, but it's not the same kind of truth as f=ma, although both statements are expressed mathematically and have the same air of seriousness around them.

jerf 16y ago
"The Drake equation basically says what anybody who has looked up at the night sky knows intuitively: there are a lot of stars out there, and it's extremely unlikely that we're all by ourselves." Further reinforcing your core point, it can also tell you that we are. You don't have to be that painfully conservative with the numbers to come with one or fewer per galaxy. For instance, 50% of stars having planets may be a brutal overestimate, a lot of stars are in multi-star systems or other situations in which there are no stable orbits, resulting in any initial planets getting ejected very quickly if they form at all. 2 Earth-like planets per star is a bold statement, depending on the exact definition of "Earth-like", we only have one in our system and if you read past the propaganda in the planet finding press releases they aren't coming up with all that many other "Earth like" planets yet. Yes, that's because they still can't see them, but the press releases convey a false sense of how the search is going when they do things like call a planet with a surface gravity of 3 or 4 G and a surface temperature beyond rock's liquification point a "Super-Earth". 10000 years is a bold estimate for how long a civ will be around and communicating, certainly. I actually am against the self-loathing that some circles find fashionable but 10,000 years is a long time. I consider these numbers generous and it still only comes up with 10. It's missing some terms, too. Irregular galaxies [1], approximately 25% of the galaxies out there, are thought to be entirely unable to support complex life because basically all the stars in such galaxies will take a system through a region of the galaxy with too much radiation and sterilize the planets every few tens of millions of years. I mean this only as an example, you can go on naming more fairly reasonable criteria that eliminate half or more stars from contention for quite a while (star types, star galactic orbits, other galaxy attributes, even before we get to planets we can eliminate a lot). To brutally abuse notation, the night sky is O(n^3) in size, if the probabilities of developing civilization are O(2^n)-type it doesn't matter how large the sky is. Big numbers fall fast when you multiply independent probabilities together, and it's not sophistication to just give up and declare there must be a lot of other civilizations out there; it's still a mathematical copout. We don't know. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregular_galaxy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregular_galaxy
- bad_user 16y ago
  I agree with your poing, but Mars is earth-like and it could have carried life ... There is evidence that Mars once carried liquid water on its surface, it's formed out of the same materials (carbon, hydrogen, water) and had all the elements needed for life. Mars lost its liquid water because (contrary to earth) it lost its atmosphere because it also lacks active plate tectonics (also, contrary to earth). So our solar system has 2 earth-like planets ... with one that became a desert and died, but that was once very much like Earth, with some people still hoping to find microscopic life at the poles. That's not too shabby. Basically it is considered that if a planet holds liquid water, then it can carry life (liquid water implies other things, like the presence of an atmosphere). Bigger solar systems may contain even more earth-like planets, but I agree: an average of 2 is way too high. EDIT: Also, one other thing: if Mars wouldn't have lost its atmosphere, then oxygen would have spread faster than on earth, because the planet is smaller, which means the transition from microscopic life to macro would have been faster.

nollidge 16y ago

It's not bad science, though, because it's not science. It's not meant to be science. All Drake set out to do was establish an agenda for an NAS meeting in 1961 regarding extraterrestrial intelligence. It's a list of known unknowns. It was not arrived at via scientific experimentation, and was never claimed to have, so anyone calling it "science", even "bad science", is mislabeling it.

jdp23 16y ago
seems to me that an agenda for a major scientific meeting falls into the category of "science".