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Of course it’s serious science, it’s just thinking about statistics. Of course most of the values are unknown right now, as we are just starting our survey of e
by labster 5y ago
Of course it’s serious science, it’s just thinking about statistics. Of course most of the values are unknown right now, as we are just starting our survey of exoplanets. But it raises lots of questions, and those are good for science.
- paxys 5y agoI don't see how it meets even a single step of the scientific method. You can call it a somewhat scientific thought experiment, if such a thing even exists, but that's about it.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoIt is pretty easy to use it generate and test hypotheses, which is frequently done and published in the literature. Common examples include radio and other EM surveys for extraterrestrial signals.
- bpodgursky 5y agoBy your definition, "Calculus" is highly unscientific.
- analog31 5y agoCalculus owes some of its development to its use in scientific theories, but also stands alone as a branch of math. One can approach it as a pure exercise in symbol manipulation (as I did as a student). Without trying to precisely define scientific methodology, I think it always needs some connection to empirical evidence. This is the problem with the Drake equation, but also with some other speculative fields like string theory. So I'd say that the Drake equation is scientific in the sense that it's motivated by scientific speculation, but has not yet found a form that can be tested.