Is our solar system weird (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, May 03, 2016, 23:41 (3125 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: A new article in the Sci. Am. magazine is not available on line, but its summary is simple. Our solar system is very unusual ("relatively rare") to what is seen elsewhere. […] The final configuration arrived about 3.8 billion years ago, which is the same time life may have started on Earth. Since life is here, this is either a simple requirement of what had to happen or good planning for a purposeful event. Take your choice. 
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> I presented the same choice in my sensational volume on Extraterrestrial Life and Its Relevance to God, but because you personally reject the first option as “wishful thinking” (my Chapters 1b and 2b), you refused to nominate me for the Nobel Prize. Why is it OK for you to offer the choice but not for me? I shall write a letter of complaint to the Nobel Executive Rejectors of Double Standards (NERDS). 
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> As regards this new article, “relatively rare” is a nicely relative expression, as indeed is “very unusual”. You wrote: “Note the entry of Tuesday, February 02, 2016, 05:40 where it is shown only 6% of solar systems have some resemblance to ours.” Some scientists reckon there could be as many as 100 billion solar systems in our galaxy alone. My highly sophisticated abacus suggests that 6% of 100 billion is 6 thousand million. Messrs Frank and Sullivan estimate ten billion trillion in the universe. (My researchers can't confirm that, I'm afraid. Lost count somewhere between 12 and 20.) 6% of that would give us…six multiplied by a thousand million divided by...multiplied by…enough potentially life-supporting solar systems to make the expression “very unusual” well worth a giggle.