The Drake Equation assumed there were only numbers, as in number of stars with planets, to be considered when equating the odds of live arising on a planet or planets. The missuse of statistics was what I tried to refer to.
Dr. Ross appears to have started with a survey of what must be the conditions and for how long in order that life arise and advance to the stage of intelligently surveying the universe around the planet upon which that intelligence arose. From one perspective, it is sort of like the Drake Equation was conceived for a box of "S" size, while ignoring that the "S" size was not constant. That box size dramatically effects the fundamental conditions required for a 'long enough quiet period' so that life evolves to the level of intelligence. Hey, the whole notion of intelligent life taking more than 500 million years to emerge may even be erroneous. It took that long on this planet, but can we apply the process fundamentals to other planets? We assume we can, for contemplation purposes. Given a consistency of temporal conditions (time is neither expanding or contracting), the changes to the universe, the environment, the biochemical processes, all these other variables were mostly ignored in the Drake Equation.
