[extropy-chat] Drake Equation nitpicking

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > 
> > Not necessarily.  The terms ft and fs both seem to
> be
> > essentially unknown (despite unjustified claims
> that
> > fs in particular and maybe also ft are both 1),
> and it
> > seems like (R* x fp x ne x fl x fi) <= 1 for the
> > volume of space we have observed so far, possibly
> for
> > the entire galaxy.
> 
> On the contrary, we count as 1

The question is, what is the expected number of
intelligent races in the volume of space that we have
observed - without reference to the fact that this
would be 0 if we didn't exist?  Is the fact that there
is 1 race here a rare exception in that we're higher
(or lower) than normal, or is our area pretty average?

We have a data point.  We don't have the actual
values.