Question: How efficient is drakes theory for predicting the chance of extraterrestrial life?

Miranda Jackson answered on 17 Jun 2015:

Drake’s theory assumes that extraterrestrial life exists, and gives us an idea of how many of them in our own Galaxy we may detect electromagnetic signals from. The theory takes into account many factors, including the fraction of stars capable of supporting life and the likelihood that a civilization of intelligent beings would actually develop the technology to transmit a detectable signal into space. Even though it was originally developed several decades ago, the tool that Drake developed is still commonly used by scientists in the search for extraterrestrial life.