Well, on the one hand:

I for one certainly very much RESPECT your strong reaction/opinion to the Drake equation, because it's very often a great thing when people question and challenge things--especially things held in deep respect by the scientific community.

So yes: I voted you up, even though I happen to personally disagree with your conclusion here!

That's probably going to seem like a bit of a foreign concept for some Reddit users: that it's perfectly ok to vote people up, and have a dialog and respectful good faith debate with them, even though they happen to clash with your beliefs/conclusions!

In other words: probably never a good idea to souround yourself with "Yes Men!" (who always merely echo/rhyme your beliefs) all your life!

But yes, I think you and the OP are very right to point out the lack of scientific legitimacy of the Drake Equation, if you are comparing it to something like Einsteinian, Newtonian, Drakean equations, etc...

However, never-the-less, I believe the Drake equation actually still holds a lot of scientific value, serving perhaps as the first time in human history that someone made a "To Do List" and map for astrophysicists to strive to improve and ultimately answer the number one question in science:

"Are humans alone in terms of advanced technological/tool-making intelligence?"

So ya, I elaborated further below in another comment why I think the Drake Equation still has some seriously strong scientific value (even though it's not meant to be a serious Einstein/Newton-like equation).

So you can check below if you want to, to skim through my "arguments".

But ultimately, if you disagree with all of them... then sure that's fine by me!

I still respect you for abiding by the scientific process, and challenging such things.

(In other words: if you were my student in those classes you describe, I'd certainly give you extra credit for being bold enough to question things, even if I didn't agree with your viewpoint in the end!)