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Originally Posted by Ian Goddard
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Originally Posted by informant
There is really nothing to test in the equation. It’s just a way to organize the information.
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Informant's analysis looks right to me. Here's an excerpt from the thread-leading page:
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Originally Posted by Michael Crichton
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.
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There is certainly evidence, indeed (dare I say) proof, that advanced life exists in the universe, us. |
True.
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Scientific hypotheses are generated by inductive inferences that extrapolate to the possibility that patterns existing in the known set of data (in known set: life on Earth) might also exist in an unknown set of data (in unknown set: life beyond Earth?). That's SETI, and that's scientific.
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You extrapolate from a dataset of only one? Science advances with hypotheses
which in principle can be tested. Virtually none of the parameters can be isolated, even in principle, to a theory with predictive ability.
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There's also no falsifiability problem for SETI. The hypothesis "Jones may be in the next room" can be falsified by an exhaustive search of the next room
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Hypothesis -> Prediction -> Testing -> Result
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; likewise, the hypothesis "There may be detectable signals from advanced ET life" can be falsified by an exhaustive search of detectable bandwidths; and thus, again, SETI is scientific.
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Hypothesis -> Prediction? ->Testing ? -> Result?
The assumptions are faulty. In the first case, the prediction is of an exact nature (Jones is in the next room), a prediction that can be tested (and if necessary can falsify the theory).
Question: How do you falsify a theory with no results and no criteria for deciding true or false statements?
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SETI is also not founded on the assertion that there is ET life, and claims to that effect are nothing but straw men.
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...is a straw man. It certainly isn't there to falsify the hypothesis, since that would require proof of (literally) a Universal negative. SETI is unfalsifiable.
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Crichton opines further: "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." However, SETI searches to date are not sufficiently sensitive to detect internal radio communications that may exist on distant planets (see). Using ourselves as proxy, if there are advanced ETs, the vast majority of their radio output would probably not be of the "Here we are" intergalactic-radio-beacon signals SETI could detect. There are of course many more points that could be raised in counter to Crichton's anti-SETI views.
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OK. Lets form a group called "The Search for God", searching the skies trying to find evidence of a Supreme Being. Do you think this has any more scientific validity than an experiment without theoretic underpinning, proof or falsifiable hypothesis?
What you've done is actually prove Crichton's point. A whole series of unjustifiable statements of your own beliefs does not a scientific argument make.