Atheists and Agnostics risk infinite loss for no gain

[popeyespappy]

Let’s talk about the Drake equation. As a scientific tool the Drake equation is useless. There are just too many unknown variables. That hasn’t stopped some highly educated people from plugging in values based on based available data.

At bbc.com they have an online Drake equation tool with presets for a few calculations. These presets include Drake’s original calculation, lowest estimate, optimistic current estimate and skeptical current estimate. The current estimates return values of 1 for skeptical and 72,000 for optimistic for number of civilizations in the Milky Way.

Even on the optimistic side of the scale the distribution of those 72,000 civilizations over both space and time would make it unlikely any exist other than our own within the OP’s 500 light year radius of Earth at a point in time that would make any transmissions they might make detectable to us.