It's A Fact... Maybe

Headline from The Times:

We are not alone: 'trillions' of planets could be supporting life

It sounds like a stunning pronouncement until you start to burrow into what Alan Boss, of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC is actually saying. All the articles that have reported on this give the impression that the galaxy is so chock full o' life that we'll be tripping over Vulcans in no time. All very exciting, but then it turns out the the number of other "Earths" claimed refer to planet size alone, not temperature, orbit, composition, moons, atmosphere, radiation, age, star type, or other factors involving habitability. Using Mr Boss's criteria, there are at least ten "Earths" in our Solar System alone. A pity only one of them has life on it.

And it gets better. We then learn that not one other "Earth" has been observed; only Super-Earths that Mr Boss suspects are "but the tip of the iceberg", which is unfortunate, as not even the tip of said iceberg has actually been seen and even if it was there's no proof that it would be an iceberg at all. The bottom line: The whole story hinges on nothing but a guess.

I only bring this whole dreary episode up because a) it shows that so-called "journalism" has virtually no capacity to see utter rubbish even when they fall over it and b) it is a classic example of what Robert Crichton was on about in his classic speech on aliens and global warming.