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No, it's time to scrap it, since it never made any sense. You can't talk about probabilities when there's only a single trial, the sample size is 1 and you have

No, it's time to scrap it, since it never made any sense. You can't talk about probabilities when there's only a single trial, the sample size is 1 and you have no possible way to determine the parameters in the first place.

Out_of_Characte 5y ago
While true that the last parameters are completely unknown (IE, wether a planet with life has intelligent life, and wether they have radio transmission capabilities) the other parameters are something we can most certainly estimate. The absense of precision in this case is why it was written in the first place. "As I planned the meeting, I realized a few day[s] ahead of time we needed an agenda. And so I wrote down all the things you needed to know to predict how hard it's going to be to detect extraterrestrial life. And looking at them, it became pretty evident that if you multiplied all these together, you got a number, N, which is the number of detectable civilizations in our galaxy. This was aimed at the radio search, and not to search for primordial or primitive life forms." So the sample size isn't 1 and there are known ways to detect all but 2 or 3 parameters of the drake equation.
- jcranmer 5y ago
  > So the sample size isn't 1 and there are known ways to detect all but 2 or 3 parameters of the drake equation. Actually, only 2 or 3 parameters of the Drake equation are estimable. (It depends on how you want to define "planets that can potentially support life"--you can argue that the answer is anywhere between 1 and 5 in our own solar system). Everything that talks about the possibility of life evolving, let alone speculating about how it will evolve or the xenosociology of what that life will try to do, is pure conjecture: that's the last 4 values of the equation, more than half of it.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  Ok, you can say that the sample size is the number of planets, but there’s only 1 trial. EDIT: If you go through the factors, only the first three even make sense to talk about. And the third, about "number of planets per star that can potentially support life" can only be discussed in terms of our particular form of life. We have no idea at all what other types of life there could be, much less under what conditions that might happen. The others are completely unknowable. For example: f_i: The fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)" I'm embarrassed even writing it out. How can anyone even start to think that they could come even with 10 orders of magnitude of the right answer, if it's even a well defined probability, which I doubt. We know of exactly one planet with life, and it has intelligent life that emits radio waves. Is that an inevitability, or a one in a trillion fluke? But what bother me the most is how you even think you can talk about probabilities when there's only one trial, and for the later factors, the sample size is most definitely 1. It's just inane.
kelnos 5y ago
You absolutely can talk about probabilities, and it's an interesting thought experiment. You just can't -- yet -- plug in meaningful numbers derived from experimental data.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  Yet? How could you ever hope to be able to say anything about the last five factors until you find another civilisation? By which time you have the answer anyway.
pitched 5y ago
You can’t really get any precision out of it but I think the size of the error bars is interesting, where recent estimates come out somewhere between 10^-13 and 10^8. That makes it a bit more likely that we’re alone than not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#Estimates https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#Estimates

Out_of_Characte 5y ago

While true that the last parameters are completely unknown (IE, wether a planet with life has intelligent life, and wether they have radio transmission capabilities) the other parameters are something we can most certainly estimate. The absense of precision in this case is why it was written in the first place. "As I planned the meeting, I realized a few day[s] ahead of time we needed an agenda. And so I wrote down all the things you needed to know to predict how hard it's going to be to detect extraterrestrial life. And looking at them, it became pretty evident that if you multiplied all these together, you got a number, N, which is the number of detectable civilizations in our galaxy. This was aimed at the radio search, and not to search for primordial or primitive life forms." So the sample size isn't 1 and there are known ways to detect all but 2 or 3 parameters of the drake equation.

jcranmer 5y ago
> So the sample size isn't 1 and there are known ways to detect all but 2 or 3 parameters of the drake equation. Actually, only 2 or 3 parameters of the Drake equation are estimable. (It depends on how you want to define "planets that can potentially support life"--you can argue that the answer is anywhere between 1 and 5 in our own solar system). Everything that talks about the possibility of life evolving, let alone speculating about how it will evolve or the xenosociology of what that life will try to do, is pure conjecture: that's the last 4 values of the equation, more than half of it.
Grustaf 5y ago
Ok, you can say that the sample size is the number of planets, but there’s only 1 trial. EDIT: If you go through the factors, only the first three even make sense to talk about. And the third, about "number of planets per star that can potentially support life" can only be discussed in terms of our particular form of life. We have no idea at all what other types of life there could be, much less under what conditions that might happen. The others are completely unknowable. For example: f_i: The fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)" I'm embarrassed even writing it out. How can anyone even start to think that they could come even with 10 orders of magnitude of the right answer, if it's even a well defined probability, which I doubt. We know of exactly one planet with life, and it has intelligent life that emits radio waves. Is that an inevitability, or a one in a trillion fluke? But what bother me the most is how you even think you can talk about probabilities when there's only one trial, and for the later factors, the sample size is most definitely 1. It's just inane.

kelnos 5y ago

You absolutely can talk about probabilities, and it's an interesting thought experiment. You just can't -- yet -- plug in meaningful numbers derived from experimental data.

Grustaf 5y ago
Yet? How could you ever hope to be able to say anything about the last five factors until you find another civilisation? By which time you have the answer anyway.

pitched 5y ago

You can’t really get any precision out of it but I think the size of the error bars is interesting, where recent estimates come out somewhere between 10^-13 and 10^8. That makes it a bit more likely that we’re alone than not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#Estimates https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#Estimates