Wanking over the Drake Equation, again

Oh, this is so silly. It’s a paper titled A Statistical Estimation of the Occurrence of Extraterrestrial Intelligence in the Milky Way Galaxy. All it is is an exercise in modeling the hypothetical distribution of hypothetical intelligent life in the galaxy, taking into account the age distribution of stars.

In the field of Astrobiology, the precise location, prevalence and age of potential
extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) have not been explicitly explored. Here, we address these
inquiries using an empirical galactic simulation model to analyze the spatial-temporal variations
and the prevalence of potential ETI within the Galaxy. This model estimates the occurrence of ETI,
providing guidance on where to look for intelligent life in the Search for ETI (SETI) with a set of
criteria, including well-established astrophysical properties of the Milky Way. Further, typically
overlooked factors such as the process of abiogenesis, different evolutionary timescales and
potential self-annihilation are incorporated to explore the growth propensity of ETI. We examine
three major parameters: 1) the likelihood rate of abiogenesis (λA); 2) evolutionary timescales (Tevo);
and 3) probability of self-annihilation of complex life (Pann). We found Pann to be the most
influential parameter determining the quantity and age of galactic intelligent life. Our model
simulation also identified a peak location for ETI at an annular region approximately 4 kpc from
the Galactic center around 8 billion years (Gyrs), with complex life decreasing temporally and
spatially from the peak point, asserting a high likelihood of intelligent life in the galactic inner
disk. The simulated age distributions also suggest that most of the intelligent life in our galaxy are
young, thus making observation or detection difficult.

<sigh>. Why? I sympathize with the idea of having fun with math, but the Drake equation is simple-minded algebra, not particularly interesting, and isn’t going to produce testable results.The authors seem to have confused their model with reality. This makes no sense:

We also concluded that at the current time of the study, most intelligent life in the Galaxy is
younger than 0.5 Gyr, with values of probability parameter for self-annihilation between 0 – 0.01;
with a relatively higher value of the annihilation parameter (≥ 0.1), most intelligent life is younger
than 0.01 Gyr. As we cannot assume a low probability of annihilation, it is possible that intelligent
life elsewhere in the Galaxy is still too young to be observed by us. Therefore, our findings can
imply that intelligent life may be common in the Galaxy but is still young, supporting the optimistic
aspect for the practice of SETI. Our results also suggest that our location on Earth is not within the
region where most intelligent life is settled, and SETI practices need to be closer to the inner
Galaxy, preferably at the annulus 4 kpc from the Galactic Center.

But…but…they’re talking about the parameters of their simulation! Their “probability parameter for self-annihilation” is something they set. All of the numbers they plug in are guesstimates, with varying degrees of reasonable justification. Of course they make an optimistic conclusion about SETI! But why should anyone accept their conclusions about an appropriate region for searching for intelligent life? Fudge their parameters a little more and you could shift the zone of likelihood where ever you want. They’ve added nothing to our understanding of the universe, unless you think that multiplying a bunch of numbers by a different bunch of numbers giving you a new result is earthshaking.

I really have to ask…why don’t reviewers simply stamp papers that are all about manipulating the Drake equation with a big red REJECT label? It would save them time and reduce the clutter in the scientific literature. Is there any value in YAWOD (Yet Another Wank Over Drake)? Who finds these informative?

You will know they are Christians by their flexible morality

A wealthy, well-connected real estate agent in the Ozarks decided to have her mother-in-law murdered. So far, so tawdry — it sounds like a True Crime melodrama that will one day appear on Netflix (something like it may have, already. I think there’s a show called Ozarks about a family’s descent into criminality).

What’s interesting about it is the woman’s justification.

According to a probable cause statement, it all began when Bauman became convinced that her 74-year-old former mother-in-law was causing a strain in her relationship with her daughters. She and her ex had divorced in 2018, and she worried he and his mother might try to get full custody of the girls.

On March 1, she confided in an unidentified woman and asked for help finding “somebody to get rid of her.” Pressed about whether she was serious, Bauman said she “knew it was wrong as a Christian, but she would go to church and ask for forgiveness after it was done.”

Then, authorities say, she wrote the 74-year-old target’s address on the back of a business card.

The alleged scheme unraveled when the woman Bauman solicited for help finding a hit man went to law enforcement instead. Because of Bauman’s political connections, the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Division of Drug and Crime Control handled the case “to avoid any hint of impropriety,” Camden County Prosecutor Caleb Cunningham told local station KY3 News.

Christian morality: the world’s greatest get-out-of-jail-free card. Everything is permissible as long as you ask Jesus to forgive you after the vile deed is done.

Also, isn’t this the most denouement ever? How often does it happen that trying to hire a hit man goes bad because the process requires revealing your intent to commit a crime to multiple people?

Bird-friendly coffee? What’s that?

I never even heard of bird-friendly coffee before, and my first thought was that must be what those early-morning noise makers in the trees around my house must be drinking. But no! GrrlScientist explains it all.

“Over recent decades, most of the shade coffee in Latin America has been converted to intensively managed row monocultures devoid of trees or other vegetation,” Amanda Rodewald, a co-author of the study who is the Garvin Professor and senior director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said in a statement. “As a result, many birds cannot find suitable habitats and are left with poor prospects of surviving migration and successfully breeding.”

Today, most coffee sold is sun-grown under little or no shade because sun makes coffee bushes grow faster and produce more coffee. This loss of tropical forest biodiversity to a row monoculture harms resident rainforest birds along with their migratory cousins so they all are disappearing along with their rainforest homes. This simple connection between habitat loss, pesticides and fertilizer pollution to intensive coffee farming methods was the impetus for Smithsonian conservation scientists to create the strictest agricultural certification criteria for coffee: their Bird-Friendly certification requires that coffee is organic and that it meets strict requirements for both mature canopy cover and the type of forest in which the coffee is grown. Bird-Friendly coffees are guaranteed to support bird habitat, in addition to fair and stable prices for coffee producers, healthy environments for local communities, and equal access to markets for Bird-Friendly coffee producers.

Uh-oh. When the birder in our house finds out, this is going to be the only kind of coffee we will be allowed to purchase.

(By the way, GrrlScientist visited us here in Morris several years ago, before Mary was bitten by the birding bug. The two of them would have even more to talk about today.)

Need rhinestones?

This is a plug for family. My niece-in-law, Audriauna, is doing quite well at turning a hobby into money — she blings stuff. You can see her work on TikTok (kids these days & their weird social media!), Instagram, and, of course, on Etsy. If you are a member of the cult of Starbucks, why are you drinking out of cardboard?

For better or worse, I live in a Starbucks desert. This is Caribou Coffee country! She doesn’t seem to have cups for my kind, but as she lives out there in the Seattle/Tacoma area I guess that’s to be expected.

Every town has got one

Spotted in Morris: crude, ugly “WE ALL MATTER” sign, dirty American flags and blue line flags, and to top it all off, “JESUS” on the roof. It really needs a few Trump signs for that special je ne sais quoi, but maybe those went down after the colossal failure.

I’m sure the neighbors appreciate the reduction in property values all around — it keeps the taxes lower, you know.

How far will Milo go?

Failed scandal-mongerer and outrage-generator Milo Yiannopoulos (remember him? He used to be in the news all the time) is in the midst of a major rebranding effort, but it’s really just more of the same: embracing the worst possible takes on everything, following along behind any fleeting trend and straining to amplify it even more. So what is he up to now?

Professional right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos has declared himself no longer homosexual. In an interview with the right-wing LifeSite, Yiannopoulos claims he is “ex-gay” and will direct his future endeavors to St. Joseph: “I treat it like an addiction. You never stop being an alcoholic… I hope people will support and pray for me, if for no other reason than they share my delight at the prospect of Milo Yiannopoulos furiously and indignantly railing against homosexuals for sins of the flesh.” He announced a new vocation as well, a dedication to the discredited and widely banned practice of forcibly subduing homosexuality: “Over the next decade, I would like to help rehabilitate what the media calls ‘conversion therapy.’” It is unclear whether Yiannopoulos remains legally married: “The guy I live with has been demoted to housemate.” And he took some time during the interview to indulge in transphobia as well, claiming “trannies are demonic.”

The key phrase in that statement is the hope that people will “support” him…he’s always on the grift, this is just his newest angle.

Man, he is desperate to recover some relevance, yet all he knows how to do is this clown-like capering for the most hateful audience he can find. What a sad pathetic wreck of a life he has — I guess if he really wants attention, he is going to get some pity out of this latest maneuver.

My birthday haul

There were presents. Mary got me some ultrabright portable work lights that will come in handy when spider-hunting season finally gets here. But mainly what she did was spend a big chunk of yesterday calling all over the state trying to get me scheduled for a vaccination. There is an utterly insane website under our freaking insane American health care system that lists all the pharmacies/clinics that have a few slots open, and like some kind of goddamn video game you have to click on to book the appointment, and if you aren’t quick enough someone else might click on it before you. Then, if you do succeed in being the first to click, you better be prepared, because you will be confronted with a complicated form demanding all kinds of information about your insurance. PCN? Bin? Group? What the hell?

Anyway, Mary spent most of yesterday evening locked to her phone, punching the screen in the worst and most stupid video game ever. End result: I have a vacccination appointment for Monday evening at a site 3 hours away, to which I must arrive within a 17 minute window to get my injection.

Those of you living outside the US may now begin laughing at the idiocy of our healthcare and the havoc the insurance system wreaks on our lives. I remember as a young man that a staple of American news was propaganda mocking the Soviet bureaucracy — ha ha, they have to stand in line for groceries, and they don’t have 50 brands of toothpaste to choose from! — and I wish people here would have the self-awareness to recognize how foolish our system is, and fix it.

In case you were wondering how I would celebrate my birthday…

I regret to report that I did not complete my grading yesterday. I was up late slogging through it all, but it was a long exam and a lot of students and a couple of the questions involved careful calculations that I had to trace through, and so I only got halfway through the stack. Today, I try to finish it.

Unfortunately, on Tuesdays I have a long morning class starting shortly, and I have a lab most of the afternoon, and I have to attend two senior seminars, so I’m going to be working late again.

I estimate that maybe I can spare a half hour around noon. So, lunch. Which because of my advanced age and feeble condition will probably consist of a lump of fiber.

Yay. Birthday. They just get better every year.

Prophecy…validated

This story is numerically accurate, at least.

Paul McCartney wrote this song in 1956, a year before I was born, and before Mary Gjerness was born. He was 14.

It was released to the public on the album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, in the spring of 1967. I was 10. Mary was 9. We had met the year before. McCartney was 25. We had not and have never met him.

I heard the song, and the whole album, often that summer. It was the Summer of Love.

Mary and I might have fled to Haight-Ashbury together, except our parents would have disapproved, and, well, we didn’t know each other that well. Also, we were kids.

The song may have implanted ideas in my head, though, because 7 years later, in the fall of 1974, I worked up the courage to ask her on a date.

It did not go well.

Shortly afterwards, Mary departed for Southeast Asia, where she studied martial arts and eventually returned to the United States to right great wrongs as the Batwoman.

I fled the opposite way, to languish in exile in exotic Indiana. I returned having learned no lessons, to repeat the same mistakes yet again. In the summer of 1976, when the song was 9 years old, I asked Mary out on a second date.

It went a little better.

I was 19. Mary was 18. Paul McCartney was 34 years old. He had nothing to do with us, but we all kind of wish we were that young again.

It was about this time that I began to wonder whether she would still be interested in needing me and feeding me when I turned 64.

She said the word. We filled in a form. We got married in 1980, when I was 23 and she was 22. Tentatively, the answer was “yes”, but I still needed empirical confirmation of the robustness of the agreement.

Suddenly! Unexpectedly! To everyone’s surprise! Forty one years flew by. Finally, I can answer the questions in the song.

When I get older, losing my hair
Many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a valentine,
birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I’d been out till quarter to three,
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty four? Ooh
You’ll be older too.
Ah, and if you say the word,
I could stay with you.
I could be handy mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside,
Sunday mornings, go for a ride.
Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty four?
Ev’ry summer we can rent a cottage
In the Isle of Wight if it’s not too dear.
We shall scrimp and save.
Grandchildren on your knee;
Vera, Chuck and Dave.
Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
stating point of view.
Indicate precisely what you mean to say,
yours sincerely, wasting away.
Give me your answer, fill in a form,
Mine forevermore.
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty four? Ho!

Yes, she still sends me valentines and birthday greetings. No, she doesn’t drink…wine.

Yes, she will lock the door if I’m out very late. But I have a key!

She probably needs me less than I need her, but she will still feed me.

Mary, unfortunately, must wait until September to find out if I reciprocate.

Wait, the song is over! What happens now? What about when we’re 65? 74? 103? I guess I better find out. My new mission: to determine the accuracy of the lyrics in the song, “In the Year 2525”.

One in-box is empty!

It is glorious. I am completely caught up on grading in my introductory biology course, and the website shows no pending items awaiting my perusal. That feels so good, even if I know it is fleeting.

I’ve already started pounding on my genetics backlog. I have once again given myself a goal of getting it completely done today. I will persist and overcome. I will taste the heady joy of a brief freedom from obligation late tonight, no matter what. I might even have a few days this week with a little time for the spider work.

Although I do have the students launching a new fly cross this week, so lab will be busy. It’s weird how I find working in the lab relaxing and not at all stressful, but sitting at home in front of my familiar computer just reading and judging student writing is agonizing. I’m already getting a headache contemplating the rest of today.