Abstract
The recent discoveries of planets around Sun-like stars, possible primitive Martian fossil life, and conditions on Europa conducive to microbial life, render more urgent the question of the place of bioastronomy in the history of science. This paper argues that the tenets of bioastronomy constitute a biophysical cosmology, a scientific worldview that holds that life is common throughout the universe. Many of the activities of the field of bioastronomy are tests of this cosmology. Like other cosmologies, the biophysical cosmology bears strongly on humanity’s place in the universe. Cosmological status may also be useful in discussing the implications of contact, when one considers the response to other cosmologies as partial, if imperfect, analogues.
First published in Astronomical and Biochemical Origins and the Search for Life in the Universe, C.B. Cosmovici, S. Bowyer and D. Werthimer, eds. (Editrice Compositori, Bologna, 1997), 785–88.
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Dick, S.J. (2020). The Biophysical Cosmology: The Place of Bioastronomy in the History of Science. In: Space, Time, and Aliens. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41614-0_4
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