I referred you earlier to the headline on the AP story as it appeared at the Huffington Post, promising a "Milky Way Teeming With Billions Of Earth-Size Planets." That was datelined Monday night. Now a colleague points out this hilarious headline, datelined today, that Fox News gave the same AP story:

At Least 8.8 Billion Earth-Size, Just-Right Planets Found, Study Says

I guess a tale really does improve in the telling. "Found"?! Not merely extrapolated, calculated, estimated, as the story itself indicates, but positively found. It sounds like they’ve all been located, mapped, carefully evaluated each and every one, atmospheres sampled, maybe even visited, revealing garden spots aplenty.

Well, if the measure of science is hope, belief, preconceived ideas, rather than fact, why not?