How do physicists get away with publishing this crap?

And further, why does the media give them attention for it?

As the Guardian credulously claims, New calculations come up with estimate for worlds capable of communicating with others. That number is…36. What a load of bullshit. I think I’ve finally realized what the Drake Equation is good for: it’s an arbitrary formula that allows physicists to freely tweak the parameters and get a new number that they can publish. No, really, that’s all this paper is — they came up some new numbers to plug into the cascade of bullshit numbers in the Drake Equation, and got a new number. Surprise!

GIGO. It’s all GIGO.

The Guardian does get quotes revealing some of their assumptions.

Basically, we made the assumption that intelligent life would form on other [Earth-like] planets like it has on Earth, so within a few billion years life would automatically form as a natural part of evolution, said Conselice.

Wait, what? Automatically? Every Earth-like planet is going to form intelligent life within a few billion years, as a natural part of evolution? That certainly is a simplifying assumption, I guess. It means their number is hugely inflated.

He’s not done, though!

[If intelligent life forms] in a scientific way, not just a random way or just a very unique way, then you would expect at least this many civilisations within our galaxy, he said.

Oh. If the evolution of intelligence is scientific, then it produces intelligence. If chance or unique conditions play a significant role, then it’s not scientific. I hope evolution is listening. Maybe it should take some physics courses?

He added that, while it is a speculative theory, he believes alien life would have similarities in appearance to life on Earth. We wouldn’t be super shocked by seeing them, he said.

life on Earth. Like it’s one thing that he can picture in his mind. What exactly does life on Earth look like?

Is this it?

Or this?

Maybe it’s this, which Dr Physicist wouldn’t be at all shocked to see.

I have a few new rules:

  • No more papers that use the Drake equation. It’s been done to death, it can be manipulated to produce any answer you want, and most of the parameters are indeterminable fantasies. It’s like publishing horoscopes.
  • Physicists don’t get to publish papers on life in the universe unless accompanied by a responsible evolutionary biologist. All these godawful cocky physicists do is demonstrate that they don’t know jack about biology — they know less than your average non-scientist, because they’re stuffed full of bogus assumptions about how it must work.
  • The media can’t just gather a couple of like-minded physicists to comment on a “life in the universe” paper. Somehow, they always manage to find a creationist to give a “fair and balanced” perspective on biology, but a physics boffin is an unquestionable source, no matter how stupid his ideas are.

I still have my old rule: when a physicist opines on biology, throw overripe tomatoes.

I do wonder if physicists are even capable of feeling embarrassment or shame. Somebody should do an experiment.

Can I be her when I grow up?

I’m reading Tea Francis’s story, and wow, that’s me, except I waited until I was 60 to get into spiders. I wasted so much time! (Well, not really, I do have a family and a career, so I can’t complain about that.)

I have kept spiders for almost 20 years now, sometimes just one tarantula, sometimes lots of different types of spiders, but they’ve been present in some capacity ever since I was 17 or 18. After moving somewhere with more space at the beginning of last year, my collection had expanded significantly to almost 200 spiders of all different types. I decided to start an Instagram account to post about my spiders as whenever I posted anything to do with them anywhere else, I got a load of the usual ‘kill it with fire’ responses which I find grating, to say the least. I started to focus my attention on studying them a lot more closely. I invested in my very first DSLR and macro lens and set about learning how to use it. That in itself unlocked a whole new level of appreciation for them and I quickly became hopelessly, irretrievably obsessed. With new photos popping up on my Instagram feed every day, sometimes multiple times a day, they seemed to be gaining rather a lot of interest from other enthusiasts, photographers, keepers and even arachnophobes who were consciously working on overcoming their fears. This was a bit of a revelation for me & definitely a motivation to do more! I took it to Twitter as well and began posting there too, where I ended up meeting a lot of arachnology folk who were either studying towards or already active in the field I had always quietly dreamed of being involved in myself. Actually working with and researching spiders.

Then look at her lovely spider nook! It’s like fantasy land!

I’m not too jealous, though. I look at that and see a heck of a lot of maintenance work, and also sadness — most spiders aren’t that long-lived, so there’s always death among the beloved horde. Also, this would be a terrifying time to be at the start of a science career. Stay strong, Ms Francis!

I shake my shaggy head at yet another creationist

I know that I need a haircut, and I was losing my voice here, and that this Matt Powell character is an awful little pipsqueak who doesn’t deserve any attention, but I wanted to throw together a little video because I was bemused by the fact that he was using those claims about aliens by Wickramasinghe to condemn all of evolutionary since. When he started incredulously yelling that “THIS IS WHAT EVOLUTION TEACHES,” that squid piggy-backed on asteroids to populate the planet, I just had to point out that this is most definitely not what evolution teaches, and that it was plain bad science.

I think I’m far more pissed off at those phonies affiliated with panspermia, and their long-running infiltration of the science establishment, than I am with a not-very-bright loudmouthed kid babbling about Jesus.

And if I’m mad at those wackos, you can’t imagine how furious I get with those frauds promoting evolutionary psychology.