Harlow Shapley

In The Faith of a Scientist, Harlow Shapley — described as emeritus professor of astronomy at Harvard University and author of Of Stars and Men — anchors Henry Eyring’s argument about design and the likelihood of extraterrestrial life. Eyring cites Shapley’s estimate that there are “a hundred million, million, million suns in space” and his conservative chain of probabilities (one sun in a thousand with planets, one in a thousand of those at the right distance, and so on), concluding “at the very minimum one hundred million planets in space which could support life.” Eyring uses these figures across two passages to argue that “from the scientific point of view, it is hard to doubt that there are myriads of worlds suitable for human habitation,” tying astronomical scale to his worship of the “Supreme Intelligence of the universe.”

Context: Harlow Shapley (1885–1972) was an American astronomer who determined the size of the Milky Way and the Sun’s off-center position within it, and directed the Harvard College Observatory.

Where this appears

• The Faith of a Scientist — Shapley’s estimates of habitable planets supply Eyring’s design-and-extraterrestrial-life argument, cited in two passages.