“Sure, it is possible we’re on the only world to host life in all of cosmic history.

Science has, of course, been arguing about the existence of life on other worlds for centuries. But the explosion in our knowledge about other worlds sheds new light on this question, revealing something remarkable.

The discovery of all those new planets means we can only be unique if the laws of the universe are strongly biased against life and intelligence.

In other words, there are so many planets in the right place for life to form that the burden now falls on the pessimists.

It’s up to the naysayers to demonstrate how, with so many worlds and so many possibilities over the whole of cosmic space and time, we somehow are the first and the only.”