Privileged Planet (20th Anniversary Edition)

Guillermo Gonzalez, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. He received his PhD in astronomy from the University of Washington and has worked at the University of Texas, Austin; the University of Washington; Iowa State University; Grove City College; and Ball State University. He is co-author of the second edition of the textbook Observational Astronomy and has published over ninety peer-reviewed scientific articles. He is also co-author of the children’s book The Farm at the Center of the Universe.Jay W. Richards, PhD, is director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family and the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. He is the author or editor of fourteen books, including two New York Times bestsellers, and has appeared on over a thousand radio and television programs.

Praise for The Privileged Planet: “In a book of magnificent sweep and daring, Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards drive home the argument that the old cliché of no place like home is eerily true of Earth. Not only that, but if the scientific method were to emerge anywhere, Earth is about as suitable as you can get. Gonzalez and Richards have flung down the gauntlet. Let the debate begin; it is a question that involves us all.”—Simon Conway Morris, author of Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe“This thoughtful, delightfully contrarian book will rile up those who believe the ‘Copernican Principle’ is an essential philosophical component of modern science. Is our universe designedly congenial to intelligent, observing life? Passionate advocates of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) will find much to ponder in this carefully documented analysis.”—Owen Gingerich, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, author of The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolution of Nicolaus Copernicus“Not only have Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards written a book with a remarkable thesis, they have constructed their argument on an abundance of evidence and with a cautiousness of statement that make their volume even more remarkable. In my opinion, The Privileged Planet deserves very careful attention.”—Michael J. Crowe, Cavanaugh Professor Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame and author of The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750–1900“The Privileged Planet will surely rattle, if not finally dislodge, a pet assumption held by many interpreters of modern science: the so-called Copernican Principle. Gonzalez’s and Richards’s argument is so carefully and moderately presented that any reasonable critique of it must itself address the astonishing evidence. I expect this book to renew the whole scientific and philosophic debate about Earth’s cosmic significance. It is a high-class piece of work that deserves the widest possible audience.”—Dennis Danielson, Professor of English at the University of British Columbia and editor of The Book of the Cosmos