|
so who was all about the Drake equation?
|
View this Thread in Original format
| diesel_tron3000 |
From today's wall street journal. the only real newspaper in the number one country on the planet, the united states {soon to include Canada and Mexico}
| quote: |
From a lecture delivered by the late Michael Crichton at the California Institute of Technology on Jan. 17, 2003:
Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two-week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation:
N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL
Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live.
This serious-looking equation gave SETI a serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses -- just so we're clear -- are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.
The Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. . . .
The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage -- similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example -- meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks. . . .
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. . . .
I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. . . .
To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world -- increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs.
This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynman called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands.
Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?
|
so the drake equation is totalllly bull and maybe even global warming
cap and trade bitches, cap andddd trade
(i used this one because the original speech in its entierty is kind of too long for this setting, but it's definitely worth reading) |
|
|
| Armitage |
Crichton was a smart guy but unfortunately this is a load of .
There's nothing false about the drake equation itself: he has a problem with the results people get after guessing at the variables, which means it can't be verified, which means it isn't science. The thing is, no one ever claims that after getting a result of 1000 intelligent species out there, that there actually ARE 1000 intelligent species out there. The results are treated with the same credibility that the estimates are: uninformed guesses.
I think this is a very close minded approach: that just because we don't now know enough to "do science", that it's all worthless. If we don't know enough, we should try to learn more - which is SETI's goal.
As for global warming, he's just a kook. His weather prediction analogy is totally inaccurate. And he misses the whole point about trying to curb human influence on the environment: the worst case scenario, even if it isn't guaranteed to happen, is real ing bad. Bad enough that we should be cautious. |
|
|
| pkcRAISTLIN |
| should've spent his time researching cancer instead. |
|
|
| SYSTEM-J |
| He was a total skeptic of global warming, wasn't he? The whole of State of Fear was an attack on the theory, and it didn't even go into detail about this computer model reliance angle. |
|
|
| SuspicionVandit |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
should've spent his time researching cancer instead. |
:(
I grin at that Colin McCrae Flight Simulator jab, too.
:( |
|
|
| MrJiveBoJingles |
| Crichton is certainly one to talk: he was hardly innocent in the dumbing-down of science that he deplores. |
|
|
| woscar99 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Armitage
There's nothing false about the drake equation itself: he has a problem with the results people get after guessing at the variables, which means it can't be verified, which means it isn't science. The thing is, no one ever claims that after getting a result of 1000 intelligent species out there, that there actually ARE 1000 intelligent species out there. The results are treated with the same credibility that the estimates are: uninformed guesses.
I think this is a very close minded approach: that just because we don't now know enough to "do science", that it's all worthless. If we don't know enough, we should try to learn more - which is SETI's goal. |
Exactly, the problem with the Drake equation is that you can pretty much play around with the variables and get any result you want. |
|
|
| yujie__ |
| the answer is 42 FTW!!!11 |
|
|
| Xan_2v2 |
I mentioned it, I wasnt "all about it" I just liked the idea that the more habitable the universe is the greater our implied chances of selfdestruction are, the sort of thing that would make most ufo hunters get all worked up about
Actualy saw this pic before I knew what it was & it mearly intrigued me enough to google it
 |
|
|
| diesel_tron3000 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Armitage
Crichton was a smart guy but unfortunately this is a load of .
There's nothing false about the drake equation itself: he has a problem with the results people get after guessing at the variables, which means it can't be verified, which means it isn't science. The thing is, no one ever claims that after getting a result of 1000 intelligent species out there, that there actually ARE 1000 intelligent species out there. The results are treated with the same credibility that the estimates are: uninformed guesses.
I think this is a very close minded approach: that just because we don't now know enough to "do science", that it's all worthless. If we don't know enough, we should try to learn more - which is SETI's goal.
As for global warming, he's just a kook. His weather prediction analogy is totally inaccurate. And he misses the whole point about trying to curb human influence on the environment: the worst case scenario, even if it isn't guaranteed to happen, is real ing bad. Bad enough that we should be cautious. |
so yeah the i'd say debate is really about pure science vs applied science, the former being more important but getting less attention. i wonder who's going to be the first to make a billion off the drake.
SETI is sweeeet, it realllly is the e that more greenbacks aren't given to programs like this and hi-tech energy. hopefully obama gives some more money to NASA, they skip the more base and go straight to mars. or just build a sick space station. wait that would never happen. killer asteroids are more of a problem
but probably global warming will do some damage first? maybe it's not that bad of a deal, like for the first time in history after all land has been claimed, there will be new land to manifest destiny over.:toothless |
|
|
| adi_hanson |
Its like everything , why start global warming when you can say were just running out of oil?
Why make up weapons of mass whatever just to get more oil?
Why do girls look better oiled up?
Why does oil of olay make good anal lube?
Why do you want to your GF's sister so bad???
make an equation for that!
Make the discovery then baffle us with the equation on how it was done.
Now where is that baby oil.............. |
|
|
| tubularbills |
we learned about the drake equation in my astronomy class i took in college. and how you could basically make up various things for the different elements. on our final exam, we had to explain the equation, and come up with an answer.
i was able to find right numbers to plug and chug in the equation to get the answer to equal one: Earth.
i ended up acing the test ;) |
|
|
|
|
