We Might Be Alone in the Universe

[doubtingthomas]

why don't we see evidence of expanding civilizations? Isn't the galaxy old enough to have been colonized by at least one intelligent civilization?

I would really like to see an answer for this one.

[Res Ipsa]

But the fact that we exist is evidence that the odds are not so long as to make our own existence virtually impossible.

Do you understand how small 10^-100 really is? A 10^-100 probability makes the existence of alien life virtually impossible in the observable universe. If the odds of life are 10^-100, then we would need something much bigger than the observable universe for alien life to form. A multiverse would explain extremely small odds, including our existence.

Of course I understand it, to the extent the human brain can grasp extreme numbers. It's clear you don't understand it. It doesn't just make "alien" life virtually impossible -- it makes us virtually impossible. So, if we have no idea how frequent life is in the universe, why in the world would it make sense to pick out of our respective assess a number inconsistent with our own existence? You're simply ignoring one of the precious few facts we have to work with -- life in the universe isn't impossible because, well, look in the mirror.

Sean Carroll said, "We can’t conclude that there must be intelligent life elsewhere just because the universe is big. It’s perfectly possible we’re the only ones here, with all the responsibility that implies."

I agree. I've never argued that there "must" be intelligent life elsewhere simply because the universe is big. I'm saying that, on the basis of the limited information we have, the existence of intelligent life is the better bet. Even if life occurs in .0000001% of star systems, that's a lot of life because there are a trillion trillion stars.

He argued, "My guess is that there is not intelligent life in the observable universe other than us. Simply on the basis of the fact that the likely number of other intelligent species in the observable universe, there's two likely numbers, zero or billions, and if there have been billions, you would have noticed already"

So, he's making a guess. ***shrugs*** But the claim in his second sentence is complete unsupported. Why is billions more likely than millions, or hundreds of thousands, or tens of thousands or thousands. And he makes no case for why, regardless of the number, we should expect to have noticed them by now. I'd like to see him try to get that bit of speculation past peer review.

But unless you know which samenesses and differences matter when it comes to the formation of life

It's very hard to prove what matters for the formation of life. It's much easier to prove that our solar system is unique. If the solar system is "a cosmic oddity", then that would be a strong hint that life is extremely rare in our observable universe.

It's not just very hard to prove. We have no idea of what conditions are necessary or sufficient for the formation of life, let alone intelligent life. That's exactly the point. We don't even know which conditions make the formation of life more or less plausible.

But you're not responding in the slightest to the biggest flaw in your argument -- you are simply assuming that, because intelligent life developed in the solar system in which you live, your solar system is the most ideal solar system for the formation of life. You are interpreting every difference between our solar system and others that we know something about as making them less hospitable for life. But you have absolutely no basis for making that assumption. It's BS, and you simply keep avoiding the problem.

The degree to which our solar system is "unusual" is purely a function of the number of different attributes you choose to consider. Do the same exercise with people. Look at enough attributes, and the odds of you being you are 1 in 8 billion...All solar systems have samenesses and differences

I am not claiming that all solar systems should be exactly the same, here's what the literature says

"Is our solar system a cosmic oddity? Evidence from exoplanets says yes"
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... -says-yes/

"Thus, taken at face value, these observations imply that the architecture of our Solar System is unique compared with the galactic population."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4394300/

Exactly! Maybe you're catching on. You've been making an unstated assumption that is inconsistent with your claim. If you recognize that we shouldn't expect uniformity in the details of solar systems, then we can find differences that make any solar system unique to some degree. So, uniqueness, in and of itself, does not say anything about the odds that life will develop within the solar system.

What evidence do you have for that?

Let me ask, if the Sun is usually loud like most Sun-like stars (similar mass, sizes, and rotation periods), then why is the Sun not loud right now? The Sun hasn't been loud for the last 9,000 years according to the researchers. "Solar activity can be reconstructed over longer periods, up to 9000 years, from cosmogenic isotopes" https://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.01401.pdf What are the odds the Sun is currently unusually quiet?

Now let's flip things. If it's common for sun-like stars to be "less active" or quiet, then why are the majority of Sun-like stars very loud?

So, you have no evidence. For the sun, what percentage of the relevant part of its lifetime does 9000 years represent? For the comparison stars, what percentage does four years of data represent?

Here's how the researchers selected their sample

To compare solar photometric variability with other stars, we focus on Kepler observations of main-sequence stars with near-solar fundamental parameters and rotation periods. The stellar fundamental parameters we consider are the effective temperature Teff, surface gravity log g, and metallicity [F e/H] (18, 19). We adopt a parameter catalog (19) that is based on Kepler data release 25 (DR25). Rotation period measurements are available for thousands of stars observed during the Kepler mission (20,21). We adopt a catalog of 34,030 stars with determined rotational periods, and 99,000 stars for which no rotation periods were detected [ (21), their tables 1 and 2]. We refer to these as the ”periodic” and the ”non-periodic” samples. From both samples we select stars with effective temperatures in the range 5500–6000 K (the value for the Sun (subscript ) is Teff, = 5780 K) and surface gravities log g > 4.2 (Sun: log g = 4.44) to focus on solar-like main-sequence stars. The surface gravity cut removes evolved stars, which are inactive, so may have diluted the variability of solar-like stars found in previous analyses (21). For the periodic sample, we select rotation periods in the range 20–30 days (Sun: Prot, = 24.47 days sidereal rotation period)

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.01401.pdf

You still haven't read or understood the paper. The sample was composed of "periodic" and "non-periodic" stars, as stated in your quote. The authors characterized our sun as a "non-periodic" star, as that's how it would likely be classified if observed from a distance using Kepler.

The activity distribution of the composite sample (Fig. 3) does not separate into distributions of periodic and non-periodic stars, but appears to represent a single physical population of stars. Fitting an exponential function y = a0 10a1Rvar to the variability distribution of the (corrected) composite sample with Rvar > 0.2% yields a0 = 0.14 ± 0.02 and a1 = −2.27 ± 0.17. The subsample of periodic stars mostly populates the high variability portion of the full distribution in Figure 3, whereas the low variability portion mostly contains stars from the non-periodic sample. The solar Rvar distribution is consistent with the majority of low-variability stars, in line with previous studies (9). Determining the solar rotation period from photometric observations alone is challenging (27–29). Consequently, the Sun would probably belong to the non-periodic sample if it were observed by Kepler, and we find that the level of solar variability is typical for stars with undetected periods (Fig. 3). The Sun would appear as a rather normal star of the non-periodic sample if it had been observed with Kepler. However, our composite sample contains stars that might have quite different rotation periods, even though they have near-solar fundamental parameters.

The non-periodic stars in the sample had lower variability than the periodic stars.

In contrast, the variability of stars in the periodic sample has a different distribution. While there are some periodic stars with variabilities within the observed range covered by the Sun, the variability amplitude for the majority of periodic stars lies well above the solar maximum value
of the last 140 years. Consequently, most of the solar-like stars that have measured near-solar rotation periods appear to be more active than the Sun. The variability of the periodic stars at the solar effective temperature, rotation period, and metallicity is Rvar = 0.36% (Fig. S8), which is about 5 times higher than the median solar variability Rvar,⊙ = 0.07%, and 1.8 times higher than the maximum solar value Rvar,⊙ 􏰀 0.20%. All these stars have near-solar fundamental parameters and rotational periods, so this implies that their values do not uniquely determine the level of any star’s magnetic activity. This result is consistent with the detection of flares with energies several orders of magnitude higher than solar flares (i.e., superflares) on other solar-type stars (30, 31).

So, the variability amplitude for the periodic stars (not the sun) is much higher than that for the non-periodic stars. If observed by Kepler, the sun would appear to be a "rather normal star of the non-periodic sample." Only if you include the periodic stars in the sample does the sun look relatively quiet.

Here's the conclusion the authors reach:

We suggest two interpretations of our result. First, there could be unidentified differences between the periodic stars and non-periodic stars (like the Sun). For example, it has been proposed that the solar dynamo is in transition to a lower activity regime (32,33) due to a change in the differential rotation inside the Sun. According to this interpretation, the periodic stars are in the high-activity regime, while the stars without known periods are either also in transition, or are in the low-activity regime. The second possible interpretation is that the composite sample in Fig. 3 represents the distribution of possible activity values the Sun (and other stars with near solar fundamental parameters and rotational periods) can exhibit. In this case, the measured solar distribution is different only because the Sun did not exhibit its full range of activity over the last 140 years. Solar cosmogenic isotope data indicate that in the last 9000 years the Sun has not been substantially more active than in the last 140 years (8). There are several ways for this constraint to be reconciled with such an interpretation. For example, the Sun could alternate between epochs of low and high activity on timescales longer than 9000 years. Our analysis does not allow us to distinguish between these two interpretations.

What don't they conclude? That the sun is uniquely different than all the solar-like stars in the sample. This time you again lifted a snippet out of a study, but this time argued for a conclusion that contradicts the actual results of the study. How many stars were in each of the two groups?

We consider stars in our periodic sample to be solar-like, i.e. they have near-solar fundamen- tal parameters and rotation periods. The non-periodic stars are considered only pseudo-solar, because their rotation periods are not known. We then discard stars fainter than 15th magni- tude (in the Kepler band) due to their high noise level, which could mask the stellar variability. After applying all these selection criteria, our final samples contain 369 solar-like stars with determined rotation periods, and 2529 pseudo-solar stars without a detected period.

So, the sun was "quiet" compared with the 369, but not with the other 2529. Or, in there words, the sun was typical of the vast majority of stars in the combined sample.

You keep getting offended when I say you haven't read or understand an article you cite. So, start reading for comprehension instead of to support some preconceived theory and you won't end up quoting snippets of a paper to support a conclusion that contradicts what the paper actually says,

[doubtingthomas]

Of course I understand it, to the extent the human brain can grasp extreme numbers. It's clear you don't understand it. It doesn't just make "alien" life virtually impossible -- it makes us virtually impossible.

It doesn't make life virtually impossible if the multiverse is real. The number 10^100 would be nothing for a big multiverse. If the probability of life is one in 10^100, it will inevitably appear in some universes. If that's the case, then it would mean we are alone in our bubble universe.

Or if the odds are 10^-25, we should only expect life to form once in the observable universe. You argument that "we exist is evidence that the odds are not so long as to make our own existence virtually impossible" doesn't prevent the probability of life to be one in 10^100 or even smaller.

But you're not responding in the slightest to the biggest flaw in your argument -- you are simply assuming that, because intelligent life developed in the solar system in which you live, your solar system is the most ideal solar system for the formation of life.

I am not claiming that at all, here's what I keep saying, "Nobody is rejecting the possibility of life forming in many star systems. However, if life is possible everywhere, why do we happen to be in a very unusual solar system?"

Exactly! Maybe you're catching on. You've been making an unstated assumption that is inconsistent with your claim. If you recognize that we shouldn't expect uniformity in the details of solar systems, then we can find differences that make any solar system unique to some degree

All solar systems are different to some extent, nobody has ever expected them to be exactly the same. You have to understand why newscientist calls our solar system a "cosmic oddity", it's not because of some small, insignificant differences.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... -says-yes/

For the sun, what percentage of the relevant part of its lifetime does 9000 years represent?

A tiny one. So, what are the odds that our Sun happens to be unusually quiet right now?

Even if solar systems with identified characteristics of our solar system are "rare," that leaves billions or trillions of solar systems materially indistinguishable from our own.

However, most of the Milky Way isn't hospitable to life as we know it, we just happen to live in the right place. I doubt there are trillions of solar systems materially indistinguishable from our own in the observable universe.

"Our home galaxy isn't as hospitable to life as you might think. Cosmic radiation, supernova explosions, and collisions with small galaxies make much of the Milky Way too hellish for biology."
https://www.science.org/content/article ... -milky-way

Kipping estimates there are "3:2 odds that intelligence may be rare."
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1921655117

[doubtingthomas]

It's not clear why an alien species would go to that significant extra trouble just to leave an artefact for us to find, when for much less effort they could probably make a probe that would pass close to many systems and send back data on all of them.

It makes sense.

We need your feedback here, this discussion is not the same without you.

[Doctor Steuss]

why don't we see evidence of expanding civilizations? Isn't the galaxy old enough to have been colonized by at least one intelligent civilization?

I would really like to see an answer for this one.

Let’s say that a civilization in our galaxy was advanced and expansionist. What would we see as evidence from where we are if 5,000 years ago, their colonization made them go from from being 3,532,256,385,215,695 km away from us to 3,531,256,385,102,952 km away?

[Res Ipsa]

Of course I understand it, to the extent the human brain can grasp extreme numbers. It's clear you don't understand it. It doesn't just make "alien" life virtually impossible -- it makes us virtually impossible.

It doesn't make life virtually impossible if the multiverse is real. The number 10^100 would be nothing for a big multiverse. If the probability of life is one in 10^100, it will inevitably appear in some universes. If that's the case, then it would mean we are alone in our bubble universe.

Or if the odds are 10^-25, we should only expect life to form once in the observable universe. You argument that "we exist is evidence that the odds are not so long as to make our own existence virtually impossible" doesn't prevent the probability of life to be one in 10^100 or even smaller.

But you're not responding in the slightest to the biggest flaw in your argument -- you are simply assuming that, because intelligent life developed in the solar system in which you live, your solar system is the most ideal solar system for the formation of life.

I am not claiming that at all, here's what I keep saying, "Nobody is rejecting the possibility of life forming in many star systems. However, if life is possible everywhere, why do we happen to be in a very unusual solar system?"

Exactly! Maybe you're catching on. You've been making an unstated assumption that is inconsistent with your claim. If you recognize that we shouldn't expect uniformity in the details of solar systems, then we can find differences that make any solar system unique to some degree

All solar systems are different to some extent, nobody has ever expected them to be exactly the same. You have to understand why newscientist calls our solar system a "cosmic oddity", it's not because of some small, insignificant differences.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... -says-yes/

For the sun, what percentage of the relevant part of its lifetime does 9000 years represent?

A tiny one. So, what are the odds that our Sun happens to be unusually quiet right now?

Even if solar systems with identified characteristics of our solar system are "rare," that leaves billions or trillions of solar systems materially indistinguishable from our own.

However, most of the Milky Way isn't hospitable to life as we know it, we just happen to live in the right place. I doubt there are trillions of solar systems materially indistinguishable from our own in the observable universe.

"Our home galaxy isn't as hospitable to life as you might think. Cosmic radiation, supernova explosions, and collisions with small galaxies make much of the Milky Way too hellish for biology."
https://www.science.org/content/article ... -milky-way

Kipping estimates there are "3:2 odds that intelligence may be rare."
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1921655117

DT, now you're flailing so hard you're forgetting your own points. What we know is that we are intelligent life that has developed in this universe. Given those two facts, it is irrational to claim that the odds of formation of life in this universe are so low that the formation of life is virtually impossible. Invoking the possibility of a theoretical multi-verse that you have absolutely no idea of its characteristics is the equivalent of invoking God to justify your arbitrary choice of impossible odds. All you are really doing is assuming what you are purporting to be showing.

You are still ducking the fundamental flaw in your argument: you don't have any evidence that links these "unique" aspects of our solar system with the odds that life will form. It's because we know next to nothing about what would constitute an ideal environment for the formation of life, let alone the characteristics of a solar system that would give the best chance of creating that entire environment. You keep treating every deviation from the specific characteristics as if it reduces the odds of life forming in that system. But that's not grounded in any evidence. And none of the sources you keep lifting snippets from say what you want them to say. Take just one issue: star type. There is not a general agreement about which type of star is most likely to produce a solar system that contains life. Don't take my word for it: read NASA's web page on exoplanets.

Where are we looking for life, and why?
An old joke offers an answer: Asked why, on a dark night, he was looking for his missing car keys beneath a street lamp, the man answered, "because the light's better." Life on other planets might be like nothing on Earth – it could be life as we don't know it. But it makes sense, at least at first, to search for something more familiar. Life as we know it should be easier to find. And "the light's better" in the habitable zone, or the area around a star where planetary surface temperatures could allow the pooling of water.

Other similarities to Earth come into sharper focus in the search for life. Many rocky planets have been detected in Earth’s size-range: a point in favor of possible life. Based on what we’ve observed in our own solar system, large, gaseous worlds like Jupiter seem far less likely to offer habitable conditions. But most of these Earth-sized worlds have been detected orbiting red-dwarf stars; Earth-sized planets in wide orbits around Sun-like stars are much harder to detect. Yet these red-dwarfs have a potentially deadly habit, especially in their younger years: Powerful flares tend to erupt with some frequency from their surfaces. These could sterilize closely orbiting planets where life had only begun to get a toehold. That’s a strike against possible life.

Because our Sun has nurtured life on Earth for nearly 4 billion years, conventional wisdom would suggest that stars like it would be prime candidates in the search for other potentially habitable worlds. G-type yellow stars like our Sun, however, are shorter-lived and less common in our galaxy.

Stars slightly cooler and less luminous than our Sun — called orange dwarfs — are considered by some scientists as potentially better for advanced life. They can burn steadily for tens of billions of years. This opens up a vast timescape for biological evolution to pursue an infinity of experiments for yielding robust life forms. And, for every star like our Sun there are three times as many orange dwarfs in the Milky Way.

K dwarfs, are the true "Goldilocks stars," said Edward Guinan of Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania. "K-dwarf stars are in the 'sweet spot,' with properties intermediate between the rarer, more luminous, but shorter-lived solar-type stars (G stars) and the more numerous red dwarf stars (M stars). The K stars, especially the warmer ones, have the best of all worlds. If you are looking for planets with habitability, the abundance of K stars pump up your chances of finding life."

The people who are actually hunting for signs of life are not in universal agreement over why type of stars we should concentrate on, let alone things like "does it have a Jupiter analog." The common wisdom on the best conditions for the formation of life have changed dramatically over the last decade as we bring more sophisticated instruments into play. The James Webb telescope is our best tool yet, as it can give us information on composition of atmospheres around exoplanets. Where will it first come into to play in the search for life? A system around a red dwarf with seven rocky planets.

And, once again, you've lifted a snippet from an article without context. The article you cited is about a 17 year old computer simulation. [ETA: My bad, that should be 7, not 17] If you've done any reading at all about the search for life on exoplanets, the field has been completely revolutionized in terms of thinking about issues like habitable zones, both around planets and within galaxies. It's been significantly impacted by research into the formation of life on our own planet in hostile environments. We have ecosystems of organisms that don't get their energy, either directly or ultimately, from photosynthesis. So life may not even require a sun to start.

Your snippet from Kipping's paper is, unsurprisingly, misleading. The paper is strictly about the development of both life and intelligent life on earth and expressly states that it should not be applied to exoplanets:

We find that the rate at which intelligent observers evolve is less well constrained. Certainly, the possibility that the rate of intelligence emergence is rapid (much less than gigayears) is strongly excluded, which is not surprising given that it took several gigayears here on Earth. But the possibility that intelligence is extremely rare and Earth “lucked out” remains quite viable. Overall, we find a weak preference, 3:2 betting odds, that intelligence rarely emerges given our late arrival.

It is tempting to apply these numbers to potentially habitable exoplanets being discovered. However, we caution that our analysis purely concerns the Earth, treating abiogenesis as a stochastic process against a backdrop of events and conditions which might be plausibly unique to Earth. If conditions sufficiently similar to the early conditions exist and sustain on other worlds for 1 Gy or more, then our analysis would then favor the hypothesis that life is common, by a factor of 𝐾>3. However, the alternative is clearly not discounted and our Bayes factor does not cross the threshold to which it would be conventionally described as “strong” (𝐾>10) or “decisive” (K>100) evidence (41). Yet, future revision regarding the earliest evidence for life could plausibly trigger this.

Overall, our work supports an optimistic outlook for future searches for biosignatures (4–7). The slight preference for a rare intelligence scenario is consistent with a straightforward resolution to the Fermi paradox. However, our work says nothing about the lifetime of civilizations, and indeed the weight of evidence in favor of this scenario is sufficiently weak that searches for technosignatures should certainly be a component in observational campaigns seeking to resolve this grand mystery.

So, the paper finds a "weak preference" that rerunning the history of earth would "rarely" result in intelligent life because we emerged as an intelligent species.

That's the last strike you get from me. You've convinced me that you have no intention of stopping your practice of lifting snippets from papers in a highly misleading manner. Respond all you want, including with your typical passive-aggressive baiting, but I'm done with you in this conversation. Maybe Physics Guy has more patience.

[doubtingthomas]

That's the last strike you get from me. You've convinced me that you have no intention of stopping your practice of lifting snippets from papers in a highly misleading manner.

Well, that's funny, because I am simply quoting the same sentences that Dr. Kipping quotes in his videos. Apparently, you understand the papers better than Dr. Kipping does, including his own papers.

Given those two facts, it is irrational to claim that the odds of formation of life in this universe are so low that the formation of life is virtually impossible.

And you now know more about probabilities than Sean Carroll. I guess Carroll is an idiot for saying, " "Life could just be rare. Probability of life starting could be 10^-100 per planet. We just don’t know ". Congratulations!

Your snippet from Kipping's paper is, unsurprisingly, misleading. The paper is strictly about the development of both life and intelligent life on earth and expressly states that it should not be applied to exoplanets

His paper could be used when discussing "solar systems materially indistinguishable from our own" which include true-earth analogs. Jesus Christ!

Invoking the possibility of a theoretical multi-verse that you have absolutely no idea of its characteristics is the equivalent of invoking God to justify your arbitrary choice of impossible odds

And believing in one finite universe is not speculation? Jesus Christ Res Ipsa!

[Res Ipsa]

For anyone interested in just how speculative any claims of what makes a planet habitable are, theoretical physicist Ethan Siegel recently wrote a very accessible piece on the topic: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang ... ble-earth/

The "abstract":

When it comes to life in the Universe, we have only one example of a cosmic success: the story of life right here on planet Earth. Although Earth had the right conditions and ingredients for life to arise, survive, and thrive, we don't know what the odds of success were, nor of what the other "prizes" were in the cosmic biological lottery. Ranking exoplanets based on a "habitability" scale is a grand and worthy ambition, but our profound ignorance makes this a premature, and ultimately wrongheaded, endeavor for today.

Perhaps the money quote:

It’s easy to make grand statements at this point, because we have a total lack of evidence as to what conditions are most conducive to life. These are questions worth thinking about, especially as we start to understand the abundances of planets of specific masses around stars of specific classes, and their distributions in terms of these and other metrics. But until we have data on what fraction of planets with any specific set of properties are actually inhabited, all of this remains speculation.

Our notion of a habitable zone is defined by the propensity of an Earth-sized planet with an Earth-like atmosphere at that particular distance from its parent star to have the capacity for liquid water, without a cover of ice, on its surface. Although this describes the conditions that Earth possesses, it is unknown whether this is a requirement, or even a preference, of life.

Since 2014, the prevailing hypothesis has been that the most massive but still rocky terrestrial planets would be the most likely to be inhabited; planets with twice Earth’s mass and about 120% Earth’s radius are preferred. Planets with significant oceanic coverage but with shallower oceans, particularly along continental shelves, are assumed to be more conducive to life. Planets closer to the center of what was initially called the habitable zone should be more likely to be home to life than a planet toward the inner edge, like Earth. And planets around slightly lower-mass stars than our Sun with slightly denser atmospheres than Earth are deemed the most likely places for life to arise.

These assumptions are all highly questionable, however. Perhaps life is most likely to arise in freshwater lakes with volcanic activity beneath them — the hydrothermal fields hypothesis — rendering the oceanic coverage question irrelevant. Perhaps larger surface areas create more unstable, variable conditions across the planet, disfavoring life’s early emergence. Perhaps our notions of what constitutes a “habitable zone” are laughable. And perhaps higher-mass, more luminous stars, possessing more ultraviolet radiation, are more likely to give rise to life; perhaps K-type and M-type star systems are mostly barren.

[doubtingthomas]

Same problem, only worse. You reached a conclusion opposite to that suggested by the paper. Here is the full abstract:

Kipping must be a liar.

[doubtingthomas]

Here's what the paper says, "From a sample of 202 solar-type stars, and correcting for imperfect detectability on a star-by-star basis, we derive a frequency of ${6.2}_{-1.6}^{+2.8}$% for giant planets in orbits from 3 to 7 au...Our results are consistent with the literature, i.e., that Jupiter-like planets in Jupiter-like orbits are relatively uncommon".
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3 ... X/819/1/28

Now you're going to lift out a piece of the background context I provided for the study and respond to that piece?

You're grasping at straws. The brightness of a star as viewed from earth is a function of what? What did you leave out?

That Kipping is an idiot, it's the same sentenced that guy quoted on his video. What a liar.