60 years later, is it time to update the Drake equation?

Re:60 years later, is it time to update the Drake equation? by kadoban on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @01:58PM (#27198515)

If there are no more 1s, then we need to answer why our position in the universe is unique. That seems like a hard question to answer. It just seems like a _much_ better bet that we aren't the only 1.

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Re:60 years later, is it time to update the Drake equation? by jawns on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @03:08PM (#27199502)

The "why" might be more of a philosophical question than a scientific question, but in terms of the science, I don't think it's hard to reason about.

Ultimately, the frequency at which abiogenesis occurs is 1/N.

It may be the case that N is small enough that the universe is positively teaming with life.

Or it may be the case that N is so unfathomably large that the odds are exceedingly small that abiogenesis occurs even once during the lifetime of the universe, and the universe just happened to get lucky.

But until we have some other confirmed, observed instance of abiogenesis, we can say nothing about N other than its lower bound is pretty large.

And I don't think we can pile probabilities on top of probabilities to say, "Well, we have no way of knowing how large N is, so I'm going to just bet that it's medium-sized."

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Re:60 years later, is it time to update the Drake equation? by tsimionescu on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @02:26PM (#27198921)

There doesn't have to be an answer. We could just be "the first"[0] life to evolve - someone always has to be. Now, if we were to say that ours is the only life to exist in the entire past and future history of the universe, that would probably require a more specific explanation.

[0] to the extent that events across vast spans of space can be said to be ordered

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Re:60 years later, is it time to update the Drake equation? by kadoban on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @02:50PM (#27199266)

If we're the first, that also requires just about as much explanation really. There are how many galaxies, and how many systems per galaxy, and how many planets per galaxy? If the chance of life per planet is anything more than on the order of 1/trillion, laws of big numbers suggest we just _can't_ be the first or only.

None of this is any kind of _hard_ proof of course, it's just attempting to reason through what we expect without having enough data to prove either way.

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Re:60 years later, is it time to update the Drake equation? by tsimionescu on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @03:42PM (#27199994)

Again, some civilization will be the first, that is a certainty. Now, you may ask 'why did civilization only arise X billion years in the universe' s history' perhaps, but not 'why are we the first and not someone else' (assuming we were, which I have no opinion on).

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Re:60 years later, is it time to update the Drake equation? by kadoban on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @10:28PM (#27203861)

Of course. But if we have reason to expect _many_, then betting that we're the first is a terrible bet.

If we conclude for some reason that we are the first, with enough evidence, sure, like you say someone has to be first.

But with so little data, the priors for "are we first or are we just missing the others" just have to be tilted heavily away from "we're first".

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Re:60 years later, is it time to update the Drake equation? by Smithalicious on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @02:06PM (#27198650)

This reasoning seems flawed, how is it that an answer that doesn't lead to difficult questions is more likely (rather than simply more convenient)?

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