New "Drake Equation" Selects Between Alien Worlds 220
An anonymous reader writes 'A mathematical equation that counts habitats suitable for alien life could complement the Drake equation, which estimates the probability of finding intelligent alien beings elsewhere in the galaxy. That equation, developed in 1960 by US astronomer Frank Drake, estimates the probability of intelligent life existing elsewhere in our galaxy by considering the number of stars with planets that could support life. The new equation, under development by planetary scientists at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England, aims to develop a single index for habitability based on the presence of energy, solvents such as water, raw materials like carbon, and whether or not there are benign environmental conditions.'
The answer is... (Score:1, Insightful)
way to go Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
"under developed" ?
In this case, maybe they should continue working on it before we talk about it, don't you think ?
Re:oblig XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
Would it be possible to use collaborative filtering, and meta data provided by xkcd to produce a "These xkcd strips may be obligatory for this article",
for sites such as slashdot?
Re:Seems silly (Score:5, Insightful)
based on the presence of energy, solvents such as water, raw materials like carbon and whether or no there are benign environmental conditions
Aren't there extremophiles on Earth that already lack some if not all of these attributes?
No.
No life without water and raw materials. And, as for "benign environmental conditions," that's a little under-defined, but in general, the entire Earth should be called "benign" by the standards of the rest of the solar system.
Why do people keep thinking (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The answer is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, intelligence is relative. Compared to what we evolve into in the next ten million years we probably AREN'T intelligent.
But what about the dolphins?
Re:Seems silly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"as we know it" clause (Score:2, Insightful)
Right, except for that whole "speed of light" thing, puts a real damper on signal propagation between these stellar neurons.
Given the estimated age of the universe, such a nervous system could have gone through *maybe* the equivalent of a month of thought in a biological brain, which isn't much.
You'd be surprised how easy it is to rule out hypotheses like this.
Re:"as we know it" clause (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, except for that whole "speed of light" thing, puts a real damper on signal propagation between these stellar neurons.
Given the estimated age of the universe, such a nervous system could have gone through *maybe* the equivalent of a month of thought in a biological brain, which isn't much.
You'd be surprised how easy it is to rule out hypotheses like this.
I'd be surprised indeed.
Will you do it?
an untestable conjecture (Score:3, Insightful)
Treat this as a bit of fun, but don't spend any money on it.
Insightful? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? I would have thought the "Der! Hooman iz teh stoopid" posts would be Redundant around here by now. Or have they ascended (read: descended) to the rank of Obligatory?
And I always suspect most posts like that translate to "Other people dare to deviate from my perfect, genius opinions, dammit, and therefore humanity has no intelligence!"
Re:The answer is... (Score:1, Insightful)
Intelligence != rich material culture (aka "civilization").
Former is unavoidable result of evolutionary arms race while latter is a just a quirk of random and unlikely circumstances leading to its origin.
In habitable places in universe, if we ever get to them, there will probably be life and if there is life there will probably be intelligent beings, like dolphins, dogs, parrots, etc. , but don't hold your breath for alien civilizations.
Re:Seems silly (Score:3, Insightful)
No life without water and raw materials.
Uh, what? How do you know? No life as we know it. Life as we don't know it still might form an industrial civilization and make radios &c.
And, as for "benign environmental conditions," that's a little under-defined, but in general, the entire Earth should be called "benign" by the standards of the rest of the solar system.
Usually it means "within the range of temperatures and pressures we believe to be capable of supporting life" which is a useful but not inviolate metric.
Re:Why do people keep thinking (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not saying that other chemical models can't support life, but water and carbon are really, really good at it. A) Water is a very good solvent, allowing other chemicals necessary for life to come together. B) Water is a polar molecule, resulting in neat properties ranging from surface tension, to capillary action, to actually influencing the shaping of groups of hydrocarbon molecules into cell-wall-like structures. C) Hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon are some of the most widespread elements in the universe, meaning that if life comes together somewhere, chances are very good that it will involve some combination of them. D) They are also very reactive, and if you're going to build complex molecules, you need stuff that reacts relatively easily. Helium is also widespread, but is very stable and doesn't react easily with other elements, therefore it isn't as useful to life. E) Hydrocarbon chains are good at storing and releasing energy.
The Drake Gamble (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a scientific imperative, and a recurring theme on Slashdot, that a sufficient sample size is necessary to draw a meaningful conclusion. And when it comes to planets we've sufficiently explored, our sample size is somewhere between 1 and 3, including Earth. We *believe* the moon is devoid of life, which is probably accurate since it's the moon is a relatively static environment, and life tends to alter its environment. We *suspect* that life is absent from Mars, but we don't know for sure. For all we know, there are planets in our own solar system that are teeming with life. The only thing we can say with any degree of confidence is that the odds of life inhabiting a given body are less than 1 and greater than 0, and that we have yet to observe extraterrestrial life.
Now it makes sense to extrapolate from our observations, but only when we have sufficient data, and drawing *any* conclusions from 1-3 points out of of billions is insane, no matter how rational it may *feel*. It's the very root of superstition. If we count the moon as a second data point, and that's still a leap of faith, then the incidence of life is 50/50. If we found bacteria on Mars, then we suddenly have data showing that life is more likely than not, and confirming evidence that 100% of worlds containing water also have life.
Given the above, trying to make predictions based on the observed data is worse than useless -- it's detrimental. It limits our focus and makes us oblivious to alternatives. It's the scientific equivalent of believing that a broken mirror brings bad luck, or that angry gods cause lightning. After all, why investigate the source of lightning when we already know that it was caused by our sin? Why investigate arid worlds when we know that life requires water? Such beliefs make us oblivious to the truth, even when we're staring it in the face.
The Drake Equation, and its variants, are nothing more than a roll of the dice or the flip of a coin at this point. Let's treat them as such, and move on.