Books that advocate the Rare Earth hypothesis:
Stuart Ross Taylor, a specialist on the solar system, firmly believes in the hypothesis, but its truth is not central to his purpose, which is to write a short introductory book on the solar system and its formation. Taylor concludes that the solar system is probably very unusual, because it resulted from so many chance factors and events.
Stephen Webb, a physicist, mainly presents and rejects candidate solutions for the Fermi paradox. The Rare Earth hypothesis emerges as one of the few solutions left standing by the end of the book.
Simon Conway Morris, a paleontologist, mainly argues that evolution is convergent. Morris devotes chapter 5 to the Rare Earth hypothesis, citing Rare Earth with approval. Yet while Morris agrees that the Earth could well be the only planet in the Milky Way harboring complex life, he sees the evolution of complex life into intelligent life as fairly probable, contra Ernst Mayr's views as reported in section 3.2 of the following reference.
John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, cosmologists, vigorously defend the hypothesis that humans are likely to be the only intelligent life in the Milky Way, and perhaps the entire universe. But this hypothesis is not central to their book, a very thorough study of the anthropic principle, and of how the laws of physics are peculiarly suited to enable the emergence of complexity in nature.
Ray Kurzweil, a computer pioneer and self-proclaimed Singularitarian, argues in The Singularity Is Near that the coming Singularity requires that Earth be the first planet on which sentient, technology-using life evolved. Although other Earth-like planets could exist, Earth must be the most evolutionarily advanced, because otherwise we would have seen evidence that another culture had experienced the Singularity and expanded to harness the full computational capacity of the physical universe.
John Gribbin, a prolific science writer, defends the hypothesis in a book devoted to it.
