High estimates would reinforce the Copernican mediocrity principle, in that large numbers of Goldilocks planets would imply that Earth is not especially exceptional.

In this sense, it is equivalent to the mediocrity principle, with important implications for the philosophy of science.

Copernicus himself was mainly motivated by technical dissatisfaction with the earlier system and not by support for any mediocrity principle.

This argument also assumes the mediocrity principle, which states that Earth is not special, but merely a typical planet, subject to the same laws, effects, and likely outcomes as any other world.

However, critics note that according to current understanding, many Earth-like planets were created many billions of years prior to Earth, so this explanation requires repudiation of the mediocrity principle.

This philosophical stance opposes not only the mediocrity principle, but also the wider Copernican principle, which suggests there is no privileged location in the universe.

Yet before this evidence, many rejected the Milne viewpoint based on the mediocrity principle.

The mediocrity principle suggests that there is a chance that serendipitous events may have allowed an Earth-like planet to form elsewhere that would allow the emergence of complex, multi-cellular life.

The mediocrity principle suggests, given the existence of life on Earth, that life typically exists on Earth-like planets throughout the universe.

David Deutsch argues that the mediocrity principle is not actually correct from a physical point of view, either in reference to our part of the universe or to our species.