Reading Sci-Fi with Astrobioloigist David Grinspoon

David Grinspoon is a comparative planetologist and an astrobiologist. He’s also a big book nerd, and his love for both fiction and nonfiction are proudly on display in his own new book, Earth In Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet’s Future. Grinspoon’s book uses insight from the study of the other planets in our solar system […]

Abstruse Goose: Astrobiologists & the Perpetual Happy Hour

We here at LWON have been all over this and we (ok, I) agree completely with AG:  astrobiologists  out-compete evolutionary psychologists for getting the most publicity out of the least evidence. Also I just ran across an interesting but  illogical argument:  if  the principles of physics, chemistry, and geology “work beyond our planet,” why not […]

Exo-Freakshows

I’ve had occasion in these pages before to write about searches for alien planets and alien life and for both, to register the loftiest disdain.  I mean, crissakes, the universe is jam-packed with philosophy-shattering freakshows, and we’re looking for things we already know exist?  Planets and life are not news.   I learned this outlook from […]