Carbon chauvinism: Difference between revisions
Returned discussion of the validity of the carbon chauvinism term |
Removed commentary since it is a new term it is best to restrict page to how "carbon chauvinism" has been used. |
||
| Line 5: | Line 5: | ||
{{cquote|There is no good reason, says Stenger, to "assume that there's only one kind of life possible" - we know far too little about life in our own universe, let alone "other" universes, to reach such a conclusion. Stenger denounces as "carbon chauvinism" the assumption that life requires carbon; other chemical elements, such as silicon, can also form molecules of considerable complexity. Indeed, Stenger ventures, it is "molecular chauvinism" to assume that molecules are required at all; in a universe with different properties, atomic nuclei or other structures might assemble in totally unfamiliar ways.}} |
{{cquote|There is no good reason, says Stenger, to "assume that there's only one kind of life possible" - we know far too little about life in our own universe, let alone "other" universes, to reach such a conclusion. Stenger denounces as "carbon chauvinism" the assumption that life requires carbon; other chemical elements, such as silicon, can also form molecules of considerable complexity. Indeed, Stenger ventures, it is "molecular chauvinism" to assume that molecules are required at all; in a universe with different properties, atomic nuclei or other structures might assemble in totally unfamiliar ways.}} |
||
Stenger's usage dealt not only with "chauvinism" regarding conventional chemistry, but also models of potential [[multiverse|alternative universes]]. |
|||
One defense of carbon chauvinism is that "we know it works."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://physics.uoregon.edu/~jimbrau/astr123/Notes/Chapter28.html#carbon |title=Life in the Universe |accessdate=2007-09-15 |first=Jim|last=Brau |publisher=University of Oregon }}:</ref> In other words to date no detailed alternative to [[carbon-based life]] has been proposed that would account for all the molecular machinery that appears necessary for life.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nai.nasa.gov/astrobio/feat_questions/silicon_life.cfm |title=Ask an Astrobiologist |accessdate=2007-09-15 |first=Ben|last=Clark |publisher=NASA}}:</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nodes/NODEv4n7-4.html |title=Why is Life Carbon-Based? |accessdate=2007-09-15 |first=Mark|last=Elowitz}}:</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980221b.html |title=Ask an Astrophysicist |accessdate=2007-09-15 |first=Mark|last=Kowitt|publisher=NASA}}:</ref> Silicon is most often discussed as an alternative to carbon<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.astrobio.net/news/article2182.html |title= Debating Life's Boundaries |accessdate=2007-09-16 |date=December 21, 2006|publisher=Astrobiology Magazine}}</ref>, although objections to it viability include the higher energies needed for it to form complex molecular chains and the relative instability of it bonds.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-03/921860820.Ev.r.html |title=Re: why is life based on carbon? |accessdate=2007-09-15 |first=John|last=Carlson}}:</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://oolong.co.uk/carbon.htm |title=Carbon and Life |accessdate=2007-09-15 |first=Fergus|last=Ray-Murray}}</ref> |
|||
== See also == |
== See also == |
||
* [[Anthropocentrism]] |
* [[Anthropocentrism]] |
||
* [[Chauvinism]] |
* [[Chauvinism]] |
||
Revision as of 12:55, 22 September 2007
Carbon chauvinism is relatively new term meant to disparage the assumption that extraterrestrial life will resemble life on earth. In particular, it would be applied to those who assume that the molecules responsible for the chemical processes of life must be constructed primarily from carbon.[1] It suggests that, as carbon-based life forms who have never encountered any life that has evolved outside the earth’s environment, human beings may find it difficult to envision radically different alternative biochemistry. The term was used as early as 1973, when Carl Sagan described it and other human chauvinisms that limit imagination of possible extraterrestrial life in his Cosmic Connection.[2]
In a 1999 Reason magazine article discussing the theory of a fine-tuned universe, Kenneth Silber quotes astrophysicist Victor J. Stenger using the term:[3]
There is no good reason, says Stenger, to "assume that there's only one kind of life possible" - we know far too little about life in our own universe, let alone "other" universes, to reach such a conclusion. Stenger denounces as "carbon chauvinism" the assumption that life requires carbon; other chemical elements, such as silicon, can also form molecules of considerable complexity. Indeed, Stenger ventures, it is "molecular chauvinism" to assume that molecules are required at all; in a universe with different properties, atomic nuclei or other structures might assemble in totally unfamiliar ways.
See also
References
- ^ Darling, David. "Carbon-based life". Encyclopedia of Life. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
- ^ Sagan, Carl (1973). The Cosmic Connection. Anchor Books (Anchor Press / Doubleday). p. 47.
- ^ Silber, Kenneth (1999). "Is God in the Details?". Reason Magazine. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) Full article