hitchens does a terrible job answering the first question.
firstly you need to realize the question was structured to be unanswerable definitively, a cunning trick, but a trick at that. it is unanswerable because science has not been able to yet probe into the reasonings of the 'goldilocks parameters' for life to exist. it is like asking a a hippo what it's like to fly.
secondly, ideas exist that hitchens could have thrown out there, but he assumes the position of humility and does not claim to be a physicist, in which this question is a matter of. some of these ideas are multiple (or infinite) universes exhibiting different combinations of these goldilocks values. coupled with this idea is the theory of the big crunch/bang. a universe is, essentially, finite in time (according to the coupling of crunch/bang). this would give an infinite possible combination of the parameters, with the one we currently live in being one of many that have existed (or exist, if considering multiple). finally, and i think most importantly, we do not posses the computational power to process all possible values of these parameters and what their outcome could be. there could be numerous different sets of these values that would allow life to thrive. thus, not making this one unique by any means. a trivial example being, if you have 6 different numbers, find a combination such that their sum equals 100. if no restrictions are placed, there is an infinite combination of these numbers that will produce a sum of 100.
