>> Cites a 2016 book and seems willfully blind to the exponential explosion of exoplanet discovery in that ensuing period. <<
>> No, it is simply a matter of whether a “Goldilocks zone” civilization exists now (in the recessive time frame pretty much once you get past Proxima), or existed then (far more likely); or a proto-planet in pre-civilization mode (let’s go!). <<
No, THIS has nothing to do with goldilocks zones or the PROBABILITY of life given the suspected values of Ernst-equation factors. In fact, for decades, not since 2016, physicists have presumed that planets are super-abundant and that life is a near-certain consequence of our universe given the known universal constants. Rather, this is about the likelihood that the universal constants are consistent with life at all.
True, but until we develop a more fundamental theory of the universe, we may simply be considering certain things to be independent when they are in fact simply different facets of an overarching phenomenon. Consider for example a person observing planetary motion in the solar system. They would possibly note regularities like the fact that planets closer to the sun move faster, that there is a relationship between the distance from the sun and the orbital period, that the shape of all the orbits is elliptical, etc., but they would consider these as independent facts about the motion of the planets. (This is not hypothetical BTW as anyone who’s studied it would recognize my examples as being Keller’s laws of planetary motion). Without knowledge of gravity, they’re just independent coincidences.
In like manner, we are assuming that the values of the universal constants can vary independently of each other. With the state of our current knowledge, this assumption seems valid — we have no theory that ties them together, just as Kepler had no theory relating the shape of planetary orbits to the increased speed of closer planets. We also assume, again based on lack of a theory stating otherwise, that these constants COULD be different. Perhaps the mechanism that formed the universe actually determined the values of the constants. I’m not well versed enough in theoretical physics to know if this is even possible, but it would certainly solve the issue of how such an improbable state came to be — it really isn’t improbable at all. I don’t think I’m way off base here; the big advances in science have always been about demonstrating that phenomena that were previously thought to be independent are in fact related.