3 ms·

So just a paper saying that there might be a great filter that we have not passed. Not really that new of idea...

• MauranKilom 6y ago
  > Not really that new of [an] idea... I think you missed the contribution of the paper by condensing my summary to the closest related concept you are aware of. I too initially thought "well duh, great filter" after reading the headline/article. But then I read the paper to figure out what exactly the novel aspect was supposed to be, and the answer (more accurate spatial/temporal galactic model, exploring influence of different parameters) seems reasonably nontrivial. Of course our knowledge hasn't made a fundamental step forward (no new data to inform our priors has been obtained), but it does provide a better understanding of our current model(s) and their parameters, as well as where to best look for obtaining more data. That's what scientific progress looks like. (Again, I cannot vouch for the results beyond "assumptions seem generally reasonable to a layman").