Posted inSingle Scoops
Why the term ‘life’ is important to research in astrobiology
A continuation of a discussion about usefulness of the term 'life' for researchers. Carol Cleland wants to keep 'life' to keep researchers open minded.
Posted inAstrobiology Life Philosophy
Why astrobiologists should NOT get rid of the term ‘life’
Carol Cleland rebuts Spacek's argument about uselessness of the term 'life' to astrobiologists. According to her 'life' is useful despite our inability to define it.
Posted inAstrobiology Life
Cleland & Grinspoon response to Benner: Do synthetic microbes provide another example of life?
The NfoLD's White Paper on Standards of Evidence in Life Detection opened a discussion on this blog. In this piece Carol Cleland and David Grinspoon tear down Benner's "second example" of life.
Posted inAstrobiology Life
The Problem with Agnostic Biosignatures
Agnostic criteria, which are currently very popular among NASA scientists, are not truly agnostic and share many of the same problems with a definitional approach for searching for unfamiliar forms of life.
Posted inSingle Scoops
Thoughts on Benner’s “Life, the Universe, and the Scientific Method”
Does the neologism "definition-theory" have any value when exploring our understanding of life.
Posted inAstrobiology Life Origin of Life
Why searching for extraterrestrial life with a universal biosignature detection framework is a mistake.
A couple of weeks ago a group affiliated with NASA released a “white paper” claiming that scientists need a universal biosignature detection framework for searching for extraterrestrial life.
Unfortunately, there is a serious problem with the first part of their proposal.