Yes uneaten stars is also an outside stat, which does (weakly) suggest aliens don’t eat stars.
Weakly? What are your conditional probabilities that we would observe stars being eaten, given that there exist star-eating aliens (within range of our attempts at communication), and given that such aliens do not exist? Or, if you prefer, what is your likelyhood ratio?
This is an excellently put objection—putting it this way makes it clear just how strong the objection is. The likelihood ratio to me sounds like it should be more or less T/F, where for the sake of conservatism T might equal .99 and F might equal .01. If we knew for a fact that there were aliens in our radio range, wouldn’t this item of evidence wash out any priors we had about them eating stars? We don’t see the stars being eaten!
Weakly? What are your conditional probabilities that we would observe stars being eaten, given that there exist star-eating aliens (within range of our attempts at communication), and given that such aliens do not exist? Or, if you prefer, what is your likelyhood ratio?
This is an excellently put objection—putting it this way makes it clear just how strong the objection is. The likelihood ratio to me sounds like it should be more or less T/F, where for the sake of conservatism T might equal .99 and F might equal .01. If we knew for a fact that there were aliens in our radio range, wouldn’t this item of evidence wash out any priors we had about them eating stars? We don’t see the stars being eaten!