Man Uses Drake Equation To Explain Girlfriend Woes 538
artemis67 writes "A man studying in London has taken a mathematical equation that predicts the possibility of alien life in the universe to explain why he can't find a girlfriend. Peter Backus, a native of Seattle and PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, near London, in his paper, 'Why I don't have a girlfriend: An application of the Drake Equation to love in the UK,' used math to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. In describing the paper on the university Web site he wrote 'the results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.'"
Stunt (Score:5, Funny)
Common, this is just a stunt in order to get his picture all over the net in order to find a girlfriend !
He must count on the fact that girls will try to prove him wrong or that girls will be pleased to be the one in a million girl.
Brilliant tactic although... ;-))
Re:Stunt (Score:5, Funny)
*sob*
I knew there's a downside of my attempt to make painstakingly certain there's no pic of me on the web...
Re:Stunt (Score:5, Funny)
naw -- you're probably better off if they don't know what you look like.
Re:Stunt (Score:4, Funny)
Well, at least they're less of a loser than the people who can't find a girlfriend through the internet.
Re:Stunt (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone who finds a girlfriend through the internet is a fucking loser.
Unlike those who cannot find a girlfriend in any way conceivable, which makes them wanking losers.
I’d rather be a fucking loser, if it’s all the same to you.
Re:Stunt (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone who finds a girlfriend through the internet is a fucking loser.
Everyone who ever finds a girlfriend at all does so through social networking. Just like anything else in the world, adding "on the Internet" doesn't change anything.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Stunt (Score:5, Funny)
No no no, this was a bad idea entirely. Now if he does find someone, he won't be able to tell her "you're the only one", he just proved there are 25 other women he would like to be with!
Re:Stunt (Score:5, Funny)
"Hey, I want to settle down. And as soon as I find the right small group of girls, the seven or eight women who are right for me, my wandering days are over, buddy!"
Re:Stunt (Score:5, Funny)
psssst. I can get you 72 NICE women. Just take this package and deliver it to, uh, Michael. Yeah, Michael.
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I don't want your unsolicited commercial mail, thank you very much.
Re:Stunt (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't be surprised if the probability of a person finding a girlfriend is inversely correlated to how likely they are to attempt to calculate the probability of finding a girlfriend. ;)
Re:Stunt (Score:5, Funny)
Once again, life imitates xkcd [xkcd.com]
Re:Stunt (Score:5, Funny)
Doesn't work either. You can't win with girls. Pay no attention to them and you won't get them, pay attention and all you get is a lawsuit for stalking and a restraining order... you just can't win.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Either way it debunks the Drake Equation in a humorous and easy to understand way. That gives it a plus in my book.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Drake Equation is the biggest load of BS to ever grace anything science related. It can be summarized thusly:
P = ( Unknown [ (Unknown + Unknown) / Unknown ^ 2 ] + Unknown ) * F
Where:
F = Frank Drake's affinity for attention.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But since we are now accumulating good data to populate the equation (by discovering planets) the Drake Equation may actually be of use to us.
Re:Stunt (Score:4, Informative)
that "good data" doesn't help the equation, not when the last four multiplicands could be zero or any other number up to the number of stars (dead or alive) that radiate heat in the milky way.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
no, not as originally presented by Drake, it calculates the "number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy". Earth is not included.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:idle (Score:5, Funny)
Right. Any story about a mathematician finding a girlfriend should be in the science fiction section.
Re:idle (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. Any story about a mathematician finding a girlfriend should be in the science fiction section.
Any story about the Drake Equation belongs in the SF section.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1. The Drake Equation is about aliens.
2. Some SF is about aliens.
----------------
3. Therefore, the Drake Equation is SF.
Did I miss something?
wellll. (Score:4, Informative)
What about...
fraction of women who would find him attractive.
fraction of women who are hetro/bisexual.
fraction of women who wont think hes a dick for assuming love is as easy as guesstimating a few numbers.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:wellll. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wellll. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:wellll. (Score:4, Funny)
LOOK! ALIENS!!!
2 is a subset of 1 (Score:4, Funny)
Prove this, and I'll show by induction that all the positive integers are subsets of 1!
We'll share the credit!
passive and whiny (Score:3, Interesting)
The pdf:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/phd_students/backus/why_i_dont_have_a_girlfriend.pdf [warwick.ac.uk]
After getting Fox news coverage and front page Slashdotting N* is
now significantly higher than the paper estimate. Think 10-100x.
f(L) is fraction of people in London from N*. Why limit
yourself to London? You or your partner might move, travel,
visit friends, soon even if you're looking for love!
Even within London, the author doesn't count people movement -
those who come to London over time.
Further, the author forgets that most all people *like* to find
productive partnerships. Unlike SETI, where we have no evidence
that the other party is looking for us, we know that women like
to find great men just as much you want to find an "attractive,
age-appropriate woman with a University education".
Worst, the author spent time write why he "can't find" a partner
when he would be better served getting out there doing activities
he loves with other people and having a great time life. Then
other people will find him, and help find others.
Truly be yourself and it is uniquely attractive.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with what you say, most of the time people just don't put the effort into it. Not only that the guy sounds like a bit of a douchebag, why would you EVER use mathematics for human relationships? Sounds like a bad idea of limiting your horizons and he assumes he knows what kinds of women would be able to charm him or get along with.
If there is anything about my experience with human beigns is - you don't know shit and have to keep pushing on and meeting people, if you add up all the people you've eve
Re: (Score:2)
You sound like someone who doesn't have much in the way of standards. Sorry, but there are a lot of things (totally side from looks) that make a person totally un-datable and the sad fact of life is, unless you have no standards, the overwhelming majority of people in the world are un-datable - which then leaves only a small group of people for you to date, which then makes it even harder to find "the one".
Face it, even if you spend every minute of your life "relaxing and meeting others", there's still an
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Shut up. Seriously, YOU'RE un-fucking-date-able. Did you consider that?
Re: (Score:2)
A douchebag? Living in lahndan? Surely not!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
After getting Fox news coverage and front page Slashdotting N* is now significantly higher than the paper estimate.
One of these things is not like the other... (at least as far as he's concerned)
This isn't gonna help. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually it's not reasonable, but predictable. There is actually a (more or less) general consensus on beauty. Basically it revolves around our liking for healthy looking partners that look like they could be partners to viable offspring with.
Generally, the pale, skinny (or grossly overweight) basement dweller isn't it.
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Re:This isn't gonna help. (Score:5, Insightful)
Love, too, is surprisingly predictable. Take two people who would not automatically rule each other out romantically, put them in frequent contact with each other, give each a significant need (sexual or not) that isn't being met in their life but is met through the other, and odds are surprisingly high that they'll end up in a relationship. And there are all sorts of actions that dramatically increase the odds. For example, confessing your feelings to another person tends to encourage them to reciprocate even if they hadn't had the feelings before. That's why the #1 and #2 rules for if you're trying to avoid having an affair are that if you develop feelings for someone else, immediately cut off contact with the person insomuch as is possible and *never* confess your feelings to them.
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Are you sure about #2?
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like someone doesn't understand Statistics.
Re:This isn't gonna help. (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like someone doesn't understand Statistics.
Of course not! 90% of people don't, and 150% of people know that. Duh!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So what you are saying is love is affected by the uncertainty principal and to observe it or attempt to quantify it in a meaningful manner fundamentally changes it?
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Re: (Score:2)
Love is not reasonable and can not be reasoned with.
So love is like the terminator. I'll be Backus.
Long story short (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Tyrol: How many of us ended up with the people we really wanted to be with? Got stuck with the best of limited options? And why? Because the ones we really wanted, the really loved, were dead, and dying, or turned out to be Cylons and they didn't know it. If Boomer had...
Adama: Listen.
Tyrol: If I had known...
Adama: Let's - let's go.
Tyrol: No. No. I didn't know.
Adama: Let's go home.
Tyrol: I didn't know. So I buried my head in the sand, and I took it, and I settled. I settled for that shriek. Those dull, vaca
Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah... (Score:5, Informative)
This is taken directly from this episode of This American Life [thisamericanlife.org] with Ira Glass.
-l
What are the odds? (Score:4, Informative)
He should try lottery or SETI@Home next. From TFA:
But in the end Backus defied the odds. Asylum reported that Backus has a girlfriend of about six months. "She's from London," he told the Web site. "And she meets all my criteria."
Good for him, but not very good for his theory...
Re:What are the odds? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm thinking some of his numbers were off. Particularly his estimate of the number of women in the acceptable age bracket. He had 5%, but I'm betting it's more like 68% for your average person (+/- 1 standard deviation) and that's the combined concept of "people he would find attractive that would also find him attractive". The human race simply would not exist if you could only bring yourself to schtup 5% of the population and only 5% of those would let you. That already increases his chances by a factor of almost 300. That brings his odds back to 1 in 1000, which seems reasonable and realistic. Then factor in the number of women he can poll in his productive years in search of those 1/1000ths (compared to the number of planets he can poll for signs of civilization in his lifetime) and the odds of finding someone rapidly approach one. Which makes intuitive sense, since as I mentioned before, the human race still exists.
The people who need to be worried are the outliers. The folks who are 2 or 3 deviations from the mean in terms of attractiveness (physically, mentally, emotionally, materially). Those on the high end may be forced to settle. Those on the low end may have to sample outside their species.
well... (Score:2)
This bodes well for the possibility of finding alien life.
Um... (Score:5, Funny)
In Soviet Russia... (Score:5, Interesting)
...the chicks actually dig intelligent guys.
Really.
So do chicks from just about any eastern bloc country for that matter.
Re: (Score:2)
It should be noted that any use of the Drake Equation does not make you intelligent - at all.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In Soviet Russia... (Score:4, Informative)
That is a myth.
I am currently living in ex-GDR where there are lots of "eastern bloc" countires. I've traveled to Bulgaria, Croatia and CZ and have good friends from Serbia and Syria.
From this experiences, I have to agree with the other AC wo stated that chicks over there look for RICH and CONFIDENT guys.
Such garbage... (Score:4, Insightful)
http://xkcd.com/384/ [xkcd.com]
Congratulations, you can google some numbers and stick them into a formula. You're brilliant, and it's oh so funny to come up with bullshit statistics like "only 100 times more likely than finding intelligent life in the universe".
Equation out of balance. (Score:2)
Self-evident reason... (Score:2, Funny)
Oh come on, it's obvious. He doesn't have a girlfriend because he is the type of guy who would use the Drake equation to figure out why he doesn't have a girlfriend. Duh.
Ironically (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the reasons he can't find a girlfriend is because he is one of those people who USE the Drake equation. But seriously, look at his Criteria.
Backus found that of the 30 million women in the UK, only 26 would be suitable girlfriends for him. His equation looked at the total number of women in the country, then narrowed it down using relevant factors including the number of women in London; the number of "age-appropriate" women (those aged between 24-34); women with a college degree; and those who Backus would find physically attractive.
Okay - so how do you POSSIBLY apply a statistical analysis on something as subjective as a womans physical attractiveness?
Re: (Score:2)
> Okay - so how do you POSSIBLY apply a statistical analysis on something as subjective as a womans physical attractiveness?
He assumes he finds 1 in 20 women attractive. Note that this number does not say anything about WHAT he finds attractive in a woman, since that information is irrelevant for the equation. I don't see why this wouldn't work and how the 'subjectiveness of a womans physical attractiveness' would interfere.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ironically (Score:4, Informative)
Okay - so how do you POSSIBLY apply a statistical analysis on something as subjective as a womans physical attractiveness?
Just walk around with a notebook and walk around, writing down whether women you see are attractive or not. When you've seen 50-ish women, you've got a decent statistical sample.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Okay - so how do you POSSIBLY apply a statistical analysis on something as subjective as a womans physical attractiveness?
Just walk around with a notebook and walk around, writing down whether women you see are attractive or not. When you've seen 50-ish women, you've got a decent statistical sample.
Walk around noting stuff win a notebook in London, and you will probably get arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Okay - so how do you POSSIBLY apply a statistical analysis on something as subjective as a womans physical attractiveness?
Actually, a study found that what men find attractive is rather consistent.
http://www.wfu.edu/news/release/2009.06.25.a.php [wfu.edu]
Big Bang Theory (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Big Bang Theory (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's obvious to everyone (except him) (Score:2)
It is intuitively obvious that anyone who's inclined to "use the Drake Equation to explain girlfriend woes" is significantly less likely to have a girlfriend in the first place.
Oblig XKCD (Score:2)
Looking at the criteria he used... (Score:2)
I know the whole thing is probably not to be taken too seriously, but looking at the paper I would say there are at least a couple of shaky assumptions.
First he's defining a rate of people who live in London. That ignores people moving in or out, or even people willing to move closer. So the figure should be higher I think.
Then he mentions he will only find 5% of "physically attractive" candidates. In other words, he is limiting himself outside of 2 times the standard deviation of the population. That's a r
Re:Looking at the criteria he used... (Score:5, Informative)
Then he mentions he will only find 5% of "physically attractive" candidates. [snip] In other words, guy's too picky :-)
When was the last time you were in London?
Phillip.
Well, there's your problem right there! (Score:2)
This man is not studying in London (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
London is a city in Connecticut, right?
Missing factors. (Score:2)
Apparently he has no attraction value, since that is also one of the keys of finding a potential girlfriend. Anyone with sufficient attraction (for instance, fame, money) would be hard-pressed to escape from potential suitors/stalkers/paparazzi.
Re: (Score:2)
He mentions Physical Attraction, but I don't know how on Earth he would arrive at a number.
What? Nobody mentioning, that xkcd already did it? (Score:2)
Hmm, or am I wrong?
I only can find this one: http://xkcd.com/384/ [xkcd.com]
Maybe (Score:4, Funny)
Pesonally, I think he doesn't have a GF because he's the type of geek who thinks of explaining why he doesn't have a GF with the Drake equation
Maybe... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seinfeld (Score:5, Funny)
My own drake equation (Score:4, Interesting)
I work it in reverse. (And that does not mean "up the butt")
For every 3 girls I talk to, I'll get one number.
For every 3 numbers I get, I'll get a date.
For every 3 dates I get, I'll get a 2nd date.
For every 3 2nd dates I get I'll score.
For every 3 girls I score with I will continue to date.
So this means I'll actually have 1 in 243 chance of meeting a girl I like beyond just sex.
Given that I date about once a week (on average) that mean every 4.6 years I'll be in a relationship.
And checking my work, that works out to seem right.
I *HIGHLY* recommend the book "Mathematics and Sex" which I believe I bought because of a /. book review...
In it, it says 12 relationships is what you need to find your best match. Given 4.6 * 12, I'll be 56 before I find the one...
Similar calculation (Score:4, Funny)
same mathematical mistake as the financial crisis (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the identical mistake made valuating debt securities. The mathematical underpinning was that you can offload most of the risk into a "junk tranch" by assuming failures like foreclosures are statistically independent. By "drake equation magic", i.e. multiplying probabilities to obtain the group probability, the group risk appears rather small. Independence is a decent assumption during good economic times because economic failures are more individual luck or actions. But during a recession, economic failures are correlated, making the group statistical model invalid. The so-called good-risk securities turned into garbage and the junk securities became gold.
I fear since a economics grad student does not understand probability like so many of his peers, this does not bode well for the future economy.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
He's set personal standards that are virtually impossible to meet. That would be his problem, not the female population's.
Are you kidding me? All he wants is a person around his age, living in the same city, with a university education, and that he finds attractive. That is not "virtually impossible" the only thing there that is probably different than 90+% of what everyone is looking for is the university education, and I wouldn't even be sure it's that different. Now, having said that I don't think using math like this is all that great an idea, though it could work.
Re: (Score:2)
and that he finds attractive
That is precisely where his personal standards are guaranteed to out of sync with reality. It's not really a problem for anyone but him, though... whatever predisposition he has in this department is unlikely to get propagated any further in the gene pool, as he's unlikely to reproduce.
Re: (Score:2)
His standards of attractiveness alone only apply to 2.5% of his age group (5% of females). Those are ridiculously high standards. Then he narrows it further by requiring them to live in the exact same city (yeah, nice goal, but it doesn't always work out that way) and have a similar education.
Compare this to the average high school where every other kid pairs up with someone in the same school. What does his Drake equation have to say about that?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think 5% is a reasonable number. Keep in mind when thinking about the number, he's 31, that means the dating pool of women is shrinking, I would think the majority of those are from the end of the pool that the general public is going to find attractive, which means that the available women keep getting "uglier".
That's rather insulting. His age group is 24 to (34?), and you're acting like the singles in that age group are mostly hags.
Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier:
"Compare this to the average high
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
To most high school students, their relationship is TEH MOST SERIOUS EVAR! In retrospect, they're not, but that doesn't change the equation.
5% is way, way, way too low. In the right situation, I bet he could fall in love with 80% of women in his age group. And the percent that is single is still quite high. And people don't get "locked up" forever in relationships, either, due to divorce or breakups. And it's not like people get married in the order of most attractive to least.
Re:So essentially (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus you might date someone you find averagely attractive, by the end of the night glimpse something about them that makes you like them more, and six months later think they're the most beautiful person in the world.
They say familiarity breeds contempt, but sometimes it works the other way.
The Bundy Creed (Score:4, Funny)
Hooter hooters, on a girl that's dumb.
What's all this education he's looking for?
Re: (Score:2)
Actually they appear to be quite reasonable. Go RTFA (or actually the pdf on the page that TFA links to).
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Re: (Score:2)
I skimmed the TFA and saw no mention of what his standards are.
It sounds more like you are a typical nerd and your only standard is "female who will talk to me". People looking for a real relationship have standards, even if it means that they'll end up alone for life - it's better to be single than to end up marrying the wrong person.
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Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm British. I've spent a fair amount of time in the US. And I disagree.
Patriotism aside, I think one probably develops a taste for local styles.
Oh, and TV isn't really representative of real life. British TV has less of a propensity for glamour than American TV. Our most popular soaps - Coronation St. and Eastenders - make a habit of taking beautiful actresses and making them dowdy in costume/makeup.
Re: (Score:2)
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Ah but life's so much more interesting if you meet a few of the less than perfect matches on the way, and your standards might get in the way of getting to know the person that is the best fit.
Holding out for "the one" is a fools errand.