Hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way. Probably a vanishingly small probability that there isn’t intelligent life somewhere out there. Earth isn’t special on a cosmic scale, FFS.

I don’t really think it’s necessary. Per the article, continents and oceans are supposed to be needed for “rapid” evolution of complex life. Further, I can imagine most planets will have geological variation of SOME sort that allows for niches and variated evolution. Just because here on earth, oceans and continents were important, doesn’t mean it’s the only way. In fact, I think complicated life stayed pretty well in water for a large portion of evolutionary history.

I am not an astrobiologist, nor any type of biologist.