The Drake Equation, according to the world’s worst encyclopedia is
… a famous result in the speculative fields of exobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).
This equation was devised by Dr. Frank Drake (now Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz) in 1960, in an attempt to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy with which we might come in contact. The main purpose of the equation is to allow scientists to quantify the uncertainty of the factors which determine the number of such extraterrestrial civilizations.
Or at least, that’s what the article said at the precise moment I accessed the page. Who knows what it will say when you do the same?
The Drake Equation is given by the following formula:
where
is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might hope to be able to communicate
and
is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
is the fraction of those stars that have planets
is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
The Drake Equation has been criticized by many scientists as meaningless. Michael Crichton in his speech “Aliens cause global warming” says of the Drake Equation:
This serious-looking equation gave SETI [the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, founded by Frank Drake] a serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we’re clear - are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be “informed guesses.” If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It’s simply prejudice.
As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from “billions and billions” to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science [my emphasis]. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion
Randall Munroe, who draws the consistently brilliant webcomic XKCD, has recently discovered that the Drake Equation is missing a term:
Another episode where you conclude that climate modellers have been elevated to a new branch of government or a special priesthood. Why else would you think that the UK government would do the following [my emphasis]:
Malaria warning as UK becomes warmer
The UK is to be hit by regular malaria outbreaks, fatal heatwaves and contaminated drinking water within five years because of global warming, the Government has warned the NHS.
Following a major consultation with climate change scientists, the Government is issuing official advice to hospitals, care homes and institutions for dealing with rising temperatures, increased flooding, gales and other major weather events.
Hospitals have been warned to prepare for outbreaks of malaria and tick-born viruses.
It warns that there is a high likelihood of a major heatwave, leading to as many as 10,000 deaths, hitting the UK by 2012.
Really? Suddenly climate scientists are experts in malarial diseases and tropical medicine? Since when? I must have missed that part of the earth sciences course I took at university.
A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said: “Our work is based on what is likely to happen if we do nothing to prevent it - and it could well be that we see an increase in diseases such as malaria.
“Malaria has been seen in these islands in the past, and it is not impossible that it will return regularly if the UK experiences more tropical temperatures and rain on the scale experienced last summer.
“Our nearest continental neighbour, France, has already experienced a severe heatwave, with thousands of people dying, mostly the old and frail, so it was very clearly seen by scientists as possible here within a short timeframe.”
So the people in France were killed by tropical diseases? No they weren’t. They died because they could not afford to air condition their homes, possibly because of those extra “green” taxes designed to reduce electricity consumption.
What of the claim that the UK has seen these diseases before? Well it has. Up to the 19th Century, malaria was endemic to certain marshy parts of England. But the greatest loss of life from malaria in England came in the teeth of the Little Ice Age when temperatures were a degree celsius lower than today, the growing season was five weeks or more shorter and snow and ice covered the land in winter for months at a time.
Want to find a real expert on malaria and disease transmission? Try Professor Paul Reiter, who works at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in San Juan, Puerto Rico:
Discussions of the potential impact of human-induced global warming frequently include malaria, a disease widely perceived as tropical. Articles in the popular and scientific press have predicted that warmer temperatures will result in malaria transmission in Europe and North America. Such predictions, often based on simple computer models, overlook malaria’s history; until recently, malaria was endemic and common in many temperate regions, and major epidemics extended as far north as the Arctic Circle. Despite the disappearance of the disease from most of these regions, the indigenous mosquitoes that transmitted it were never eliminated and remain common in some areas. Thus, although temperature is important in the transmission dynamics of malaria, many other variables are of equal or greater importance.
Interestingly Professor Reiter withdrew from the IPCC because of its politicization of scientific issues and pre-ordained conclusions which ran counter to the scientific evidence. He even had to threaten to sue them to withdraw his name from the list of authors for the IPCC Review. He also reported that the IPCC had no other comparable expertise on tropical medicine and the transmission of tick-born diseases.
But hey! Why bother when climate modellers can fulfill any expert role.
The English word for malaria was ague, a term that remained in common usage until the 19th century. The Medieval Warm Period was already on the wane when Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400) wrote, in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, “You are so very choleric of complexion./ Beware the mounting sun and all dejection,/ Nor get yourself with sudden humours hot;/ For if you do, I dare well lay a groat/ That you shall have the tertian fever’s pain,/ Or some ague that may well be your bane.”
Such mention of agues did not disappear when the coldest years of the Little Ice Age began. In 16th century England, many marshlands were notorious for their ague-stricken populations and remained so well into the 19th century. William Shakespeare (1564–1616), who was born in the autumn of Bruegel’s first fierce winter, mentioned ague in eight of his plays.
So says Professor Reiter. But what does he know? He’s not creating stupid panics from computer models unable to predict the next El Nino, the next drought or anything else.
But he’s not listened to, because he doesn’t represent the views of a self-indulgent consensus of over-qualified idiots. Whatever makes climate modellers believe their own publicity? Its the rockstar syndrome transplanted into academia.
I recommend the entire essay “From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age” and learn the medical and climatic reality. The UK Government won’t, because scaring Britons with imaginary hobgoblins and unlikely scenarios is a form of social control, and the British taxpayer gets to foot the bill.
You can bet that by 2012, with the UK government unable to produce a single case of domestic malaria, no-one will be held responsible for the money wasted and no-one will be to blame, and the report will be quietly forgotten to be replaced by the next health scare promoted by “the faceless consensus of idiot experts”.
Update:
Professor Paul Reiter testified as to the IPCC’s expertise in tropical medicine and malarial transmission to the UK House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee in 2005. His judgment on the IPCC’s “expertise” was devastating [my emphasis]:
The natural history of mosquito-borne diseases is complex, and the interplay of climate, ecology, mosquito biology, and many other factors defies simplistic analysis. The recent resurgence of many of these diseases is a major cause for concern, but it is facile to attribute this resurgence to climate change, or to use models based on temperature to “predict” future prevalence. In my opinion, the IPCC has done a disservice to society by relying on “experts” who have little or no knowledge of the subject, and allowing them to make authoritative pronouncements that are not based on sound science. In truth, the principal determinants of transmission of malaria and many other mosquito-borne diseases are politics, economics and human activities. A creative and organized application of resources is urgently required to control these diseases, regardless of future climate change.
Just a note on an essay from George Mason University’s History News Network blog, on the symmetry between organized religion and environmentalism (or at least the catastrophic kind getting the headlines at the moment):
- Both are highly moralistic and use the language and strategies of “sinfulness.” This also involves an implied and often explicit claim to have monopolized the moral high ground.
- Both involve the idea that one must sacrifice now for some undetermined future reward. This makes the Lent connection very logical.
- Both have historically been very quick to label and condemn as “heretics” those who disagree with them.
- Both have a tendency toward irrationalism and mysticism, e.g. the Gaia strand of environmentalism.
Of course this has been noted before by Michael Crichton:
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday—these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don’t want to talk anybody out of them, as I don’t want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don’t want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can’t talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.
And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren’t necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It’s about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them. [my emphasis]
I recommend both essays.
I’ve just posted this to DeSmogBlog as they congratulate themselves on being the best Canadian group blog:
Congratulations on the award, coming as it does on the heels of the conviction of John Lefebvre, the top financial benefactor of the DeSmog Blog, for money-laundering.
Its an impressive moral superiority you display in smearing law-abiding scientists who dissent from the manufactured and largely hollow “consensus” on global warming, that you have been funded by a felon who laundered money from criminal activities.
Give yourselves a big pat on the back that while scientists who have committed no crime and received no money from special interests get smeared by association (and often its a big reach to find that association), DeSmogBlog is funded from straightforward criminality.
It’s alright - you have no shame. That’s why you’ll censor this comment rather than deal with reality - which is why its cross-posted to my blog as well where you can’t delete it.
See also http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22611
I remember Steve McIntyre noting that when Al Gore spoke at the AGU, he noted that the style of communication was that of a revivalist preacher - a remark which got him some flak at the time, until other commentators noticed it as well.
Al Gore was welcomed by a standing ovation from about 4,000 scientists from the AGU convention in the Salon 8 Ballroom at the Marriott San Francisco. He spoke for an hour and was a far more accomplished speaker than one remembers from Presidential debates, glancing only occasionally at notes. It was like a Southern Baptist orator had seamlessly changed texts. His speech was a type of sermon: a few well-practised jokes to start, a commentary on selected verses followed by a call to commit. Gore himself has gotten a little stout over the years (not that I can throw stones on this count) and a little jowly, so his presentation and appearance resulted in a type of secular avatar of Jerry Falwell.
And just to show that that observation is entirely valid, Al Gore went to the New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta on January 31st and produced fire and brimstone:
“This is not a political issue,” Gore told a crowd of approximately 2,500 paying attendees. “It is a moral issue. It is an ethical issue. It is a spiritual issue.”
Gore quoted Scripture several times in his speech and repeated his views that increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere are causing a global climate crisis. Gore produced an Academy Award-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which also dealt with global climate change and is being shown at the New Baptist Covenant meeting.+
In an introduction of Gore, Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, called the former Democratic presidential nominee a “Baptist prophet” and criticized the Southern Baptist Convention for its failure to commend Gore for his achievements. He also presented Gore with a “Baptist of the Year Award.”
Al Gore is “Baptist of the Year”. Whatever.
Back to the fire and brimstone:
Gore, citing Luke 12:54-57 for scriptural support, argued that it is dishonest for anyone to claim that global warming is merely a theory rather than a scientific fact.
“The evidence is there,” he said. “The signal is on the mountain. The trumpet has blown. The scientists are screaming from the rooftops. The ice is melting. The land is parched. The seas are rising. The storms are getting stronger. Why do we not judge what is right?
“I think there is a distinct possibility that one of the messages coming out of this gathering and this new covenant is creation care — that we who are Baptists of like mind, in attempting in the best of our human abilities to glorify God, are not going to countenance the continued heaping on contempt on God’s creation.”
Now I had to look up that passage that Gore quoted. In the New American Standard Version, it reads like this:
54 And He was also saying to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out.
55 “And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way.
56 “You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?
57 “And why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right?”
Now that passage looks like it was ripped from its context. The context is Jesus telling the crowds about his divine mission:
49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!
50 “But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!
51 “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division;
52 for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.
53 “They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
So the signs quoted by Gore are not about the weather, but about the divisiveness of Jesus’ message and the coming Judgment of sinners (that’s the context of the 12th Chapter). Real fire and brimstone stuff.
Gore concludes:
Gore said some Baptist spokesmen deny the reality of global warming because they are locked in a coalition with rich and powerful people who take advantage of the poor for economic profit.
“When did people of faith get so locked in to an ideological coalition that they got to go along with the wealthiest and most powerful who don’t want to see change of the kind that’s aimed at helping the people and protecting God’s green earth?” Gore asked
Now that’s rich coming from Gore, a man whose family fortune came from the oil industry and whose second fortune is being made by selling indulgences carbon credits to rich people to assuage their environmental guilt.
The article ends with something bizarre - who does Gore blame for this catastrophe?
Among the effects Gore cited of increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are floods, tornados, hurricanes and droughts. Global warming affects the poorest people of the world most. He cited three factors responsible for recent increased levels of Greenhouse gases — population growth, the science and technology revolution and errant thinking by humans.
So Gore is in favour of ignorance and superstition after all. Science and technology are the problem, not the solution.
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