Green blue abstract exoplanet.jpg
Green blue abstract exoplanet outer space vibrant sea. Waves, splashes and drops of water paint. Mysterious esoteric depths of the galactic ocean
Photo by amixstudio on Adobe Stock
ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
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Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards on Science Sensationalism

Episode
1271
Guest
Guillermo Gonzalez
Duration
00:18:47
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Audio File (15.4 mb)
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On this episode of ID the Future, philosopher Jay Richards and astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez, co-authors of The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, discuss reports on another extra-solar planet recently in the news.

It’s K2-18b, 124 light years away, the first exoplanet found in its star’s circumstellar habitable zone with liquid water in its atmosphere. Science journalists have sensationalized it as another potential earth-like home for life, even though, says Gonzalez, it’s much more like Neptune or Saturn than Earth. BBC science journalist Pallab Ghosh recently criticized this kind of unbalanced science reporting. We have to keep our eyes open for this sort of thing, especially since — as Gonzalez and Richards show — Ghosh makes precisely this mistake himself in his article warning about the problem.