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this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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You realize humans have only had the ability to search for aliens using electronic equipment for less than 200 years right?
The universe is ~14 billion years old. The earth is only ~4 billion years old. Humanity is only ~200,000 years old.
You need to read about the Fermi paradox. The likelihood of extraterrestrial life existing is a mathematical certainty. We just haven't seen any due to a multitude of factors.
You're mixing up the Fermi paradox and the Drake equation.
Assuming you meant the Drake equation, more than half of the variables we have absolutely no statistical basis to decide on a fraction. Obviously they are non-zero, but they could be extremely improbable. We only have one example of intelligent life developing radio communications. Any estimate of a statistical likelihood of that using Earth as an example is meaningless without other examples.
Some pessimistic estimates give solutions as small 9.1 x 10^-13 which indicates we would be alone.
The Fermi Paradox riffs on the optimistic answer to Drake's Equation. If other intelligent life is a certainty, why haven't we found them yet?
If it existed within our observable limits we are likely to have heard of it.
The Fermi paradox doesn't imply sophisticated alien life exists on earth.
Of all observations we have have only found one species able to leave their planet deliberately. That's humans. There no evidence of any species leaving their solar system. Humans have never went beyond the moon, other than robots. Only one of which has reached the end of the solar system, but not entering another.
We also have no evidence of life on another planet to base any calculations on. The best estimate of life existing anywhere else is zero. You need another observation per planet to make any realistic estimate.
People are biased even physicts by the desire for extraterrestrial life. It adults looking for a father figure, we had god but once we went beyond the clouds and developed the ability to explain most phenomenon people look for a replacement. Someone to explain all our problems and give us solutions.