One of the classic speculations of astronomy and biology is the uniqueness or likelihood of intelligent life in the universe. Dr. Frank Drake who is now Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at University of California proposed, in 1960, a mathematical framework to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy. The equation, now known as the Drake Equation.
What’s fascinating about the equation are the kinds of variables Drake chose as contributors to the existence of a civilization. In this video, astronomer Carl Sagan describes the equation’s components and its implications to the existence of intelligent life in the galaxy:
Come up with your own estimate of life using the Drake Equation using this interactive version from Nova.
How accurate is the Drake Equation? That’s the problem. No one can really say at this point–although it does provide a plausible framework. Most of the variables are just simply guesses. Criticisms of the Drake Equation in wikipedia:
Criticism of the Drake equation follows mostly from the observation that several terms in the equation are largely or entirely based on conjecture. Thus the equation cannot be used to draw firm conclusions of any kind. As T.J. Watson states:
The Drake equation consists of a large number of probabilities multiplied together. Since each factor is guaranteed to be somewhere between 0 and 1, the result is also guaranteed to be a reasonable-looking number between 0 and 1. Unfortunately, all the probabilities are completely unknown, making the result worse than useless.
Likewise, in a 2003 lecture at Caltech, Michael Crichton, a science fiction author, stated:
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. [...] As a result, 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…
One reply to such criticism is that experiments by SETI scientists do not attempt to address the Drake equation for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations anywhere in the universe, but are focused on specific, testable hypotheses (i.e., “do extraterrestrial civilizations communicating in the radio spectrum exist near sun-like stars within 50 light years of the Earth?”).
Another reply to such criticism is that even though the Drake equation currently involves speculation about unmeasured parameters, it stimulates dialog on these topics. Then the focus becomes how to proceed experimentally.
The Drake Equation is simply another one of those questions that have to wait for more advanced instruments, theories, and discoveries in order to shed more insight. Meanwhile we can only guess.
You’re HERE
And HERE my dear
And no, I’m not a poet.
Thanks for the links dear. We’ll be blogging more about E.T. and UFOs very very soon.
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth.
– The Galaxy Song, by Eric Idle
As you have written it doesn’t give accurate calculation of intelligent species in our universe. But at least it gives idea about probability of intellient species. There are something missing this equation give idea about our planet Earth like intelligent species. I have written a post on this you can check I reached here a link on my blog.
The speculation the question of whether or not other life exists other than on earth is quite wide. Everyone has their own assumption and belief of whether there is or is not life, therefore one can say their is life on a planet for each person that believes there is life on it. I think that will give scrutiny to all these who-blah non-believers.