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The Privileged Planet (20th Anniversary Edition)

How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed For DiscoveryGuillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards

Are we just an accident of cosmic evolution? Is Earth a “lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark” as the late Carl Sagan put it? Or is there more to the story? In this provocative book, Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards marshal a staggering array of scientific evidence to counter the modern dogma that Earth is nothing more than the winner of a blind cosmic lottery.

When The Privileged Planet was first published in 2004, it garnered both praise and rage. But its argument has stood the test of time. In this completely revised 20th anniversary edition, Gonzalez and Richards show how thousands of discoveries of extrasolar planets over the last two decades have only strengthened their case.

They take readers on a mind-expanding journey through our solar system and beyond. Along the way, they explore the mystery of total solar eclipses, the crucial role of water and carbon, the fine-tuning of physics that makes advanced life possible, and the beginning of cosmic time. From our cozy blue planet to the edge of the known universe, they show how earthlike planets are exquisitely fit not only to sustain life but to provide the best platform to discover the hidden wonders of the cosmos.

The Privileged Planet compels us to reconsider our place in the universe. Far from a cosmic fluke, our world is ingeniously designed not just for life but for discovery.

Guillermo Gonzalez

Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Guillermo Gonzalez is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy in 1993 from the University of Washington. He has done post-doctoral work at the University of Texas, Austin and at the University of Washington and has received fellowships, grants and awards from such institutions as NASA, the University of Washington, the Templeton Foundation, Sigma Xi (scientific research society) and the National Science Foundation. In 2024, he co-authored the YA novel The Farm at the Center of the Universe with Jonathan Witt.

Jay W. Richards

Senior Fellow at Discovery, Senior Research Fellow at Heritage Foundation
Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, and the Executive Editor of The Stream. Richards is author or editor of more than a dozen books, including the New York Times bestsellers Infiltrated (2013) and Indivisible (2012); The Human Advantage; Money, Greed, and God, winner of a 2010 Templeton Enterprise Award; The Hobbit Party with Jonathan Witt; and Eat, Fast, Feast. His most recent book, with Douglas Axe and William Briggs, is The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic Into a Catastrophe.