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> I've always hated speculation based on this equation because most of the variables are complete shots in the dark.

The "stars with planets" fell into the "shots in the dark" when the equation was first created but then technology advanced and now we know for sure.

Also, even if just one parameter goes from not zero but near zero to near one, that is a HUGE increase in probability that life exists somewhere else in the universe.

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GP complains that the Drake Equation parameters are essentially unknowable to us. (I agree firmly.) Attempts to say "the product is non-negligible" are therefore folly - even if one of the factors increases by orders of magnitude. The factors are, after all, bounded by 1.

Fermi's Paradox tells us that IFF the product is not inconsequentially small, there is a problem. But we have no way of knowing that condition is true, and may never be able to know.

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