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Foxybabe21 t1_izakpyb wrote

I've listened to Peter Ward talk about the rare earth hypothesis before and have done some brief reading on the subject. With what we've learned since that book was published (2000) through the various new telescopes and other means, does that hypothesis seem closer to the truth or further away?

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loki130 t1_izdwoi8 wrote

We really don't have near enough information to have any uncertainty about it. Perhaps some more extreme claims about the occurence rate of roughly earth-mass planets in inner planetary systems have become implausible, but we know very little about what the surfaces of these planets are like or what conditions are necessary for life.

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