[Physicist]

It claims that the equation was developed "as a way to focus on the factors which determine how many intelligent, communicating civilizations there are in our galaxy." And since I have not heard of any "intelligent, communicating civilizations" other than our own as of yet (and do not look at all good in tinfoil), I do not see how I could be misinterpreting it. The final, crucial, stated condition has not been proven, therefore it is bunk.

Is it that you don't think that the factors in the Drake equations actually have values, or that you don't think that the product of those values, once measured, would yield the correct answer?

[asgardshill]

I believe they have values (and they have value as well), but the last condition distilled out of all those values (x number of communicating civilizations) is unproven and therefore bunk. Just because the conditions exist to support something doesn't mean that it logically follows that "something" does indeed exist.