[ExI] mersenne primes again

[spike]

> ...On Behalf Of Gordon Swobe
> ...
> 
> Perhaps Trojan happened by sheer chance to offer a 
> two-for-one sale on condoms on the day before the power 
> outage. We would never discover this fact if we let our 
> intuitions over-rule the data.  -gts

Damien wrote a short story called The Magi, wherein a mentally disturbed
priest follows his religious convictions to their logical conclusion, then
does what appears to be sheer madness, but really isn't.  He follows a
perfectly linear series of steps, each based completely on sane logic, and
ends at a horrifying absurdity.

Using Drake style reasoning, a person whose religious beliefs go against
birth control could get a job on the night shift at the Trojan factory, then
sneak in with a needle and punch a clean hole in the condoms.  Or get a job
at the birth control factory and substitute some of the pills for placebos.

G, I get your point: using Drake style reasoning, it is impossible to get
the number of expected extra-terrestrial civilizations to go to zero, and
using that line of reasoning also prevents getting the number of
power-failure babies to go to zero.  In that sense the line of reasoning
itself is suspect, agreed.  On the other hand, if we do Drake-style
reasoning and theorize 1 to 4 extra births per million, that signal isn't
detectable either, using known statistical methods.  This demonstrates that
our current methods of understanding what we see are far from perfect,
causing us to miss so much.

spike