On a Rare Earth with Bijan Nemati

In this bonus interview footage from Science Uprising, astrophysicist Bijan Nemati engages in a wide-ranging discussion of the rarity of the Earth, the search for extra-terrestrial life, fine-tuning, the Big Bang, and lots more. Currently at the University of Alabama — Huntsville, Nemati spent much of his career as a scientist at NASA’s famous Jet Propulsion Lab at Caltech.

As Dr. Nemati observes, the Earth is indeed rare. And as science advances, it is looking rarer and rarer. Putting aside the seeming impossibility of evolving the first life without intelligent design, on Earth or anywhere else … the conditions needed for an Earth-like planet are exceedingly tough to meet: “You’d have to look at tens of thousands of Milky Ways, at least, before you should expect to see a single Earth.” Nemati details some of the hurdles, as well as other conditions, far tougher, that must have been tuned just right at the Big Bang, with crazy precision, in order for stable planets and stars to form. The rarity of our “blue marble” suggests either near-impossible mind-blowing good luck, or, more in line with common-sense and our experience of reality, intelligent design.

David Klinghoffer, “The Empty Heavens — Two Ways to Look at It” at Evolution News (July 1, 2019).