Anthropic principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1961, Robert Dicke noted that the age of the universe, as seen by living observers, cannot be random.[8] Instead, biological factors constrain the universe to be more or less in a "golden age," neither too young nor too old.[9] If the universe were one tenth as old as its present age, there would not have been sufficient time to build up appreciable levels of metallicity (levels of elements besides hydrogen and helium) especially carbon, by nucleosynthesis. Small rocky planets did not yet exist. If the universe were 10 times older than it actually is, most stars would be too old to remain on the main sequence and would have turned into white dwarfs, aside from the dimmest red dwarfs, and stable planetary systems would have already come to an end.