By the 1700s, there could no longer be any doubt. Earth was just one
of many worlds orbiting the Sun, which forced scientists and theologians
alike to ponder a tricky question. Would God really have bothered to
create empty worlds?
To many thinkers, the answer was an emphatic "no," and so cosmic pluralism - the idea that every
world is inhabited, often including the Sun - was born. And this was no
fringe theory. Many of the preeminent astronomers of the 18th and 19th
century, including Uranus discoverer Sir William Herschel, believed in
it wholeheartedly, as did other legendary thinkers like John Locke and
Benjamin Franklin. How could so many geniuses believe in something so silly?
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