'Rare Earth' twelve years later: What We Know Now

Dr. Peter Ward is a paleontologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and author of 14 books including 'Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe' with Don Brownlee.

The wealth of new exoplanet discoveries has demonstrated the extraordinary diversity of planetary systems.  Yet even with the caveat that planets of Earth-size remain elusive because of the difficulty of sampling, second Earth's still do not seem abundant in the Cosmos.  In this talk Dr. Ward will review the "Rare Earth Hypothesis, some fifteen years after its genesis and speak specifically about the fate of habitable planets based on Deep-Time investigations of our own planet.