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The third term in the Drake Equation
- Thread starter PCarr
- Start date
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PCarr
Paranormal Adept
There are some people who find the Fermi paradox genuinely puzzling. Others, like Seth Shostak, don't think it is so puzzling. Me, I'm on the fence - the notion of a top-down managed colonization campaign is, as Geoffrey Landis pointed out more than 20 years ago, not realistic. More important, I don't think we know what the observables would be. As always, I call for epistemic humility.
stonehart
Paranormal Adept
Good place to be in my opinion on this particular subject .. Even Mr Sagan took a conservative stance.
PCarr
Paranormal Adept
Oh, and here is a link to Landis' paper for those who are interested: The Fermi Paradox: An Approach Based on Percolation Theory
stonehart
Paranormal Adept
Very good post!
Personally i think on the balance of probability the galaxy is teeming with life , with many of these societys being technologically capable of travelling here.
I'm long past the "do they exist" question myself.
So a lot of my ruminations on the subject are done so with this assumption in place.
Having cheated and skipped the first question, im on to the next one, Why dont we have obvious contact ?
The answers and implications in this question are for me, the more interesting ones.
I'm long past the "do they exist" question myself.
So a lot of my ruminations on the subject are done so with this assumption in place.
Having cheated and skipped the first question, im on to the next one, Why dont we have obvious contact ?
The answers and implications in this question are for me, the more interesting ones.
stonehart
Paranormal Adept
Hell yes very intelligent post!
I also am long past the do they exist question because for me it is simply logical.
Yes as Mr Sagan pointed out at this point we are playing a statistical game but the fact of the matter is the numbers are so huge that even a conservative 1% equals an astounding number of technological species out there some place.
I think in part the reason why the galaxy has not been over run by any one particular civilization is for one the problems with distance and that not all planets are probably conducive to colonization even if they have a breathable atmosphere .. war of the worlds ending comes to mind (and yes I know this is 100% pure speculation).
But the most pointed question is the "Why no direct contact" ... yes why indeed?
Frank Stalter
Paranormal Maven
R* = 10/year (10 stars formed per year, on the average over the life of the galaxy)
fp = 0.5 (half of all stars formed will have planets)
ne = 2 (stars with planets will have 2 planets capable of developing life)
fl = 1 (100% of these planets will develop life)
fi = 0.01 (1% of which will be intelligent life)
fc = 0.01 (1% of which will be able to communicate)
L = 10,000 years (which will last 10,000 years)
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
R* and L are sort of non-factors now. I think these days, the consensus is star formation has really quieted down in our galaxy and most others and we're considering what might be going on in the galaxy right now. L I think is a little bit of projection . . . . when Drake came up with this, we were in the middle of the Cold War, an end to humanity was not out of the question. If an advanced civilization has been wiped out, I suspect natural causes would be the culprit and don't think that happens very often. The key variable is fc, There's isn't any doubt about that in my mind.fp = 0.5 (half of all stars formed will have planets)
ne = 2 (stars with planets will have 2 planets capable of developing life)
fl = 1 (100% of these planets will develop life)
fi = 0.01 (1% of which will be intelligent life)
fc = 0.01 (1% of which will be able to communicate)
L = 10,000 years (which will last 10,000 years)
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
PCarr
Paranormal Adept
R* really refers to an average over the last several billion years. 10 is a good round number.
Frank Stalter
Paranormal Maven
Haha, it might be a great number but I don't see any relevance to where we're all at today.
PCarr
Paranormal Adept
Well, we don't know exactly how long it takes for a planet to develop intelligent life, but we suspect it's on the order of billions of years. So the contemporary "production rate" of technological civilizations (what the first six terms estimate), will be with stars that formed billions of of years ago.
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Frank Stalter
Paranormal Maven
Which makes the rate of new star formation meaningless.
stonehart
Paranormal Adept
Yes very good point.
Even older systems could be producing life right now... younger systems if ours is anything to go by are probably/possibly/maybe just a little to chaotic to produce technological civilizations. The point is how do we really know because we don't even know if our system and our development is a-typical. You know we could be late developers or early ones...
Frank Stalter
Paranormal Maven
Yup, we only know of one and have no idea of where we're at on the scale. Finding some form of life on a moon within our solar system or proof of past life on Mars would be awfully compelling. Even the number of stars in our galaxy is up for debate . . . . . estimates are pretty broad. I've seen 200 to 600 billion.
Of course, Drake was just preparing some fodder for conversation when he put his equation together.
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PCarr
Paranormal Adept
Do you guys want to make this our regular SETI thread, or shall we start one more clearly labeled? I've got a ton of material on SETI. I've interviewed three SETI scientists so far, and have more to come, plus I ruminate about it in my shabby little blog. If there is a question about SETI that I can't answer, I'll get it answered.
Frank Stalter
Paranormal Maven
I'm subscribed to this one so let it ride.
Much like the SETI scientists claim about "UFO or Paranormal" research, I see SETI as a cult. A cult of "wishful thinking" that advanced ET's would continue to use radio for interstellar communications. I believe I mentioned prior, that back in the early 1990's I debated Shostak on a television show up in the Bay area and while speaking I stated that if an interstellar civilization had looked at Earth in the radio spectrum in the 1950's we would have looked like a star with all the radio and TV signals we were projecting. Not today, we have many more advanced telecommunication advances. That is only about 60 years so imagine what a ET civilization might do in 10,000, 100,000 or a million years. Not that I am suggesting that this might be real but remember how the "Federation" did it on Star Trek. Sub-space communications. Might that be real? Who knows but since Frank Drake pointed his radio telescope up to the stars we have heard just about bupkus. And if we finally do pick up someone someday ... will they be in their version of the 1950's?
Decker
PCarr
Paranormal Adept
Of course, lots of people have made similar arguments before, and I am not surprised that the scientific community is unimpressed, since they have already thought through all that, except with much more sophisticated analysis. In the 20 years that they have subsisted without federal funding, SETI has actually earned more respect and scientific credibility thanks to their methodical and thoughtful approach. Instead of half-assed speculation, they have generated informed, testable hypotheses and have gone about testing them - you know, science. Science is hard. There have been lots of intriguing nibbles, but they don't count if they can't be confirmed.
What the current radio SETI enterprise is looking for are other civilizations that are trying to advertise their presence. There are solid, well documented reasons to hypothesize that radio would be the spectrum of choice. Maybe it's not, but no one has made a better argument. At present low levels of funding, it will take another 20-30 years to make one pass through the basic search space, so in this case, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence at all.
Optical SETI, on the other hand, may be able to undertake more of an eavesdropping strategy. I recently spoke to the famous planet hunter Geoff Marcy about that, although it's really just getting underway on the big telescopes.
Really? No kidding ... and they speak about this ... where? We lay folk, well they mostly consider us rubes ... and thus dismiss us. You know, we lay people out here in the boon docks are seldom worthy of their discourse. Well, scuse' me. Who is it for the most part that help pay for the freight for SETI. Having, over the years, talking with many of those guys .. I have a feel for the covert contempt many of them have for the great unwashed masses. Doesn't negate the questions however, or the resistance they have for furnishing answers.
Decker