Science! vs. Pseudo-Scientific Gobbledygook
The Drake Equation is an attempt, devised by Dr. Frank Drake, to mathematically estimate the number of alien civilizations that might exist in the universe and thus, by extension, the number of alien civilizations with which we might reasonably expect to detect and possibly even communicate. To date, we have not detected any civilizations other than our own, and though the field of animal intelligence is fascinating and has made great strides in recent years as medical science has produced great advances in brain scanning devices and techniques, Homo sapiens sapiens is the only sentient species known to exist.



I am a lifelong fan of science fiction. There is much more to SF than aliens, but without them SF would be so much less, both in volume and in substance. Even before I was sophisticated enough to tackle Asimov, Pohl, or Bester, I was fascinated by aliens as diverse as the Wookiee Chewbacca, the Vulcan Mr. Spock, the Kryptonian Superman, and the eponymous Aliens who so frequently imperiled Sigourney Weaver. And despite the potentially cataclysmic or even apocalyptic ramifications of first contact, I dearly wish us to meet aliens. And I am a proponent of science for its own sake, the notion that pure research is an inherent good, even if no practical applications are immediately forthcoming or even foreseeable. For reasons above and beyond the whimsical, I like the fanciful notion behind the plaques on the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes and the golden records included within the Voyager 1 and 2 probes. Please bear these items in mind when contemplating the following:

The Drake Equation is so patently unscientific as to have crossed all the way into the realm of being anti-scientific.

"Science, n., 1. the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding." (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

The Drake Equation, by contrast, is a celebration of ignorance and misunderstanding. I applaud Dr. Drake's audacity in attempting to bring reason to the previously metaphysical, and thereby inherently muddled, debate about Man's place in the cosmos and the question of extraterrestrial life. But in the same breath I damn the man's arrogance and abandonment of the scientific method.

Earth is the only planet and/or miscellaneous heavenly body known to support life. The essence of science is experimentation producing replicable results. We have only the good earth to study, we have absolutely zero data on how life has arisen in environments other than Earth; therefore, any and all assumptions made to fulfill parts f_l, f_i, and f_c of the equation are either (a) pure guesses or (b) based solely on Earth's experience. Neither is replicable, therefore neither is scientific. So, the very construction of the Drake Equation requires one to set aside the scientific method and use a none-too-distant relative of the Ouija board.

Furthermore, L is an entirely insufficient tool for encompassing the problem scale poses to interstellar contact. We know nothing about the nature of an interstellar civilization, having never witnessed one, nor can be claim to know much or anything about the typical longevity of a civilization with technology comparable to our own. (Sure, we're still here, the world didn't end yesterday, but that tells us precious little about the likelihood of the world ending in ten years.) So, any number used for L is, like the f's, naught but guesswork. Yes, one can bring the full weight of probability and other mathematical disciplines to bear to add a veneer of respectability to the numbers, but at the end of the day even the most rigorously derived probabilities will be derived solely from Earth's experience (and our understanding of life's genesis here is far from complete) and thus not necessarily applicable to alien worlds.

And even if a pan-galactic version of Poor Richard's Almanac from the far future, listing precisely the duration of the "communicative phases" of a large number of alien civilizations, were to fall into your lap, this would not address the true nature of the problem of scale. Consider: the Egotrippers were a mighty interstellar civilization with colonies throughout the Milky Way Galaxy, including a populace in the billions on an Earth-like world orbiting Tau Ceti, a star nearly twelve light-years distant from ours, Sol. The Egotrippers broadcast radio signals on the exact frequencies for which SETI's followers have been scouring the heavens lo these past forty-odd years. The Egotripper civilization's "communicative phase" (Drake's L) lasted for over twenty million years; the last Egotripper world to cease radio broadcasts was that orbiting Tau Ceti, and its message reached Earth a scant twelve years after being broadcast. But if the radio waves of that broadcast reached Earth in 1871, how would we ever know? Mankind didn't possess radio technology until the late 18th century, too late to receive any Egotripper signals.

Even from the far side of our galaxy, a radio signal would take "only" 100,000 years to reach Earth. A civilization could have flourished for millions and millions of years, but unless it was doing so at astronomical and geological equivalent of right this very minute we would have, given our current detection strategies, no clue and no way to acquire any clue. And mind you that though life on Earth is ancient, our species is only 200,000 years old; our civilization is only 10,000 years old; and radio technology is arguably only 125 years old. I detest the doomsday pessimism that arises when the nuclear bomb is discussed, but the stark reality is we do not know how much longer Earth, as represented by Mankind, will possess radio transmission and reception capability. The dinosaurs ruled the earth for scores of millions of years, but they disappeared three scores of millions of years ago; were our only source of information about them their radio broadcasts (not their physical equipment, just the energy of their broadcasts) instead of their remains, we would be entirely ignorant of their existence. And all this without even asking how 21st century, Earth-bound Man could be expected to communicate with an alien race from a star 75,000 light-years distant that shan't arise for another 500,000,000 years. The underlying and scientifically unsupportable thesis behind the Drake Equation is that all civilizations must have arisen at very nearly the same moment and must exist for very nearly the same duration; that makes Mr. Spock delightfully more likely, but it has fuck-all to do with the scientific method.

Yet, because most scientists are science fiction fans and thus hold a deep affection for the very idea of aliens, and because Drake is a highly intelligent man who has made many valuable contributions to astronomical knowledge, many have overlooked or disregarded the abandonment of the scientific method enshrined in the Drake Equation. Thus, whatever benefit might be derived from the equation as a stimulus for a series discussion of the potential existence of alien life is undermined and more than outweighed by the affront to science at the equation's very foundation. I believe in science, not cheap newspaper horoscope theatrics dressed up in a lab coat and given a stereotypical rocket scientist's German accent. The Drake Equation is gobbledygook, pseudo-scientific at best, but virulently anti-scientific gobbledygook at worst; I fear the worst. Let it be added to the ashheap of fraudulent science alongside alchemy, augury, and phrenology.

Science!