If we accept Einstein's mathematics, why not the also the Drake equation (and others)?
I've done the math, and Drake's Equation shows that we're it for the time being.
---------------
The Drake equation is very simple math. I am sure that even the people on this board with little math skills could be made to understand it without too much effort. The problem of course is the variables. We get more information all the time that helps us to make better guesses at a few of them. However, the most of the important variables can only be filled in by a guess from the gut. Your calculations to the extent that they produced a number relied heavily on you filling in some of the variables with massive guesswork. So you cannot declare that "we are it," base on that. Nor can one declare the opposite position.
The Drake equation was meant less to be a formula predicting the chances of life, and more something to identify the variables we would need to quantify in order to predit the chance of not only life, but life that is somewhat simular to the life we know. It is also a fun equation to fill in with your gut guess work and see what the odds are if you happened to be correct.
Here are the variables from wiki:
R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
1) and 2) - We are getting our hands around that more and more each day. We have a good deal of data here and can make educated guesses that will get better and better with little time.
3) We still have little idea here. We are just barely getting to the point where we can find "habitable" planets in the sense that they could support life like ours. We certainly are not to the point where we can make a well informed educated guess as to the number and distribution. Of course, this also discounts even considering the odds of life that may be able to live in dramatically different conditions from our own.
4) We can say even less about this variable. We still are wrapping our hands around abiogenesis and would have a difficult time saying what the odds were for this process to occur on Earth much less a similar process on another planet, not to mention any possible completely different process that we have yet to discover.
5) I am not certain about how much a biologist could say here. I am reasonably up on evolution but have never really looked at it from this stand point. I believe that being able to quantify the odds of it happening on Earth at least gives us a starting point to make educated guesses elsewhere, but I am not sure how far along we are here. Maybe someone else knows.
6) and 7) Both involve social sciences as much as anything else, which can produce wildly varying results. Predicting this variable with the information at our disposal currently is nothing more than going on a gut feeling and pulling a number out of the air.
So no matter how much of a math ninja you are, your final value is only as good as your inputs. Garbage in, garbage out.
