Critical Issues in the History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Astrobiology

Dick, Steven J.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-41614-0_38

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 67 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The graph in Figure 1 encapsulates specifically our own evolutionary trek from big bang to humankind (Chaisson 2001(Chaisson , 2014bDick 2012). It empirically maps the evolutionary path, with neither purpose nor direction, of the Milky Way, Sun and Earth, as well as life and society.…”

Section: The Messagementioning

confidence: 99%

Internalizing null extraterrestrial “signals”: An astrobiological app for a technological society

Chaisson

2015

The Impact of Discovering Life Beyond Earth

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One of the beneficial outcomes of searching for life in the Universe is that it grants greater awareness of our own problems here on Earth. Lack of contact with alien beings to date might actually comprise a null "signal" pointing humankind toward a viable future. Astrobiology has surprising practical applications to human society; within the larger cosmological context of cosmic evolution, astrobiology clarifies the energetic essence of complex systems throughout the Universe, including technological intelligence that is intimately dependent on energy and likely will be for as long as it endures. The "message" contained in the "signal" with which today's society needs to cope is reasonably this: Only solar energy can power our civilization going forward without soiling the environment with increased heat yet robustly driving the economy with increased per capita energy usage. The null "signals" from extraterrestrials also offer a rational solution to the Fermi paradox as a principle of cosmic selection likely limits galactic civilizations in time as well as in space: Those advanced life-forms anywhere in the Universe that wisely adopt, and quickly too, the energy of their parent star probably survive, and those that don't, don't.

show abstract

Section: The Messagementioning

confidence: 99%

Internalizing null extraterrestrial “signals”: An astrobiological app for a technological society

Chaisson

2015

The Impact of Discovering Life Beyond Earth

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Christopher Kempes' work on this project was supported by CAF Canada and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant No. 80NSSC18K1140).1 There is a rich recent tradition of philosophical commentary on astrobiology, not all of which we are able to comment on here; see for instance Fry (2000), Chela-Flores (2011), andDick (2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

“…1 There is a rich recent tradition of philosophical commentary on astrobiology, not all of which we are able to comment on here; see for instance Fry (2000), Chela-Flores (2011), andDick (2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Epistemology and anomaly detection in astrobiology

Kinney

Kempes

2022

Biol Philos

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examine the epistemological foundations of a leading technique in the search for evidence of life on exosolar planets. Specifically, we consider the "transit method" for spectroscopic analysis of exoplanet atmospheres, and the practice of treating anomalous chemical compositions of the atmospheres of exosolar planets as indicators of the potential presence of life. We propose a methodology for ranking the anomalousness of atmospheres that uses the mathematical apparatus of support vector machines, and which aims to be agnostic with respect to the particular chemical biosignatures of life. We argue that our approach is justified by an appeal to the "hinge" model of epistemic justification first proposed by Wittgenstein (1969). We then compare our approach to previous work due to Walker et al. (2018) and Cleland (2019a, 2019b. * We are very grateful to Artemy Kolchinsky for detailed feedback on an earlier draft of this paper, to David Wolpert for helpful discussions, and to audiences at Philosophy of Biology at the Mountains hosted by the University of Utah, and the Uncovering the Laws of Life Workshop in Grindavik, Iceland. Christopher Kempes' work on this project was supported by CAF Canada and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant No. 80NSSC18K1140).1 There is a rich recent tradition of philosophical commentary on astrobiology, not all of which we are able to comment on here; see for instance Fry (2000), Chela-Flores (2011), andDick (2012).

show abstract

Critical Issues in the History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Astrobiology

Cited by 2 publications

References 67 publications

Internalizing null extraterrestrial “signals”: An astrobiological app for a technological society

Internalizing null extraterrestrial “signals”: An astrobiological app for a technological society

Epistemology and anomaly detection in astrobiology

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About