Event Timeslots (1)
Wednesday
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Are we alone in the universe? This question is as multifaceted as are the lines of potential evidence for living beings on other planets. For instance, can we detect ‘biosignatures’ on extrasolar planets (Kinney & Kempes, 2022), and how should we even define them (Malaterre et al., 2023)? How credible and safe are results in “astrobiology” in general (Vickers et al., 2023; Jeancolas et al., 2024)? Are there evolutionary arguments that life should be expected to be scattered across distant galaxies (Hermida, 2022), and how do we determine how life originates at all (Malaterre et al., 2022)? Is there solid evidence of artefacts from other civilizations crossing our solar system (Loeb, 2022; Cowie, 2023; Matarese, 2022)? Or is it even reasonable to believe that there are living beings from other planets here on earth (Lane, 2025)? Furthermore, if we do detect life in space, how should we interact with it (Peters, 2018; Baum, 2016)?nn
References (incomplete):nn
• Baum, S. D. (2016). The ethics of outer space: a consequentialist perspective, in James S.J. Schwartz & Tony Milligan (eds.), The ethics of space exploration, 109-123. Springer.n
• Cowie, C. (2023). Arguing about extraterrestrial intelligence. The Philosophical Quarterly, 73(1), 64-83.n
• Hermida, M. (2022). Natural Selection of Independently Originated Life Clades. Philosophy of Science, 89(3), 454-470.n
• Jeancolas, C., Gillen, C., McMahon, S., Ward, M., & Vickers, P. J. (2024). Breakthrough results in astrobiology: is ‘high risk’research needed?. International Journal of Astrobiology, 23, e1.n
• Kinney, D. & Kempes, C. (2022). Epistemology and anomaly detection in astrobiology. Biology & Philosophy 37, 22.
Lane, W. C. (2025). The extraterrestrial hypothesis: an epistemological case for removing the taboo. European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 15(1), 1-34.n
• Loeb, A. (2022). On the possibility of an artificial origin for ‘Oumuamua. Astrobiology, 22(12), 1392-1399.n
• Malaterre, C., Jeancolas, C., & Nghe, P. (2022). The origin of life: what is the question?. Astrobiology, 22(7), 851-862.n
• Malaterre, C., et al. (2023). Is there such a thing as a biosignature? Astrobiology, 23(11), 1213-1227.n
• Matarese, V. (2022). ‘Oumuamua and meta-empirical confirmation. Foundations of Physics, 52(4), 83.n
• Peters, T. (2018). Toward a Galactic Common Good: Space Exploration Ethics. In: Boonin, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. n
• Vickers, P., Cowie, C., Dick, S. J., Gillen, C., Jeancolas, C., Rothschild, L. J., & McMahon, S. (2023). Confidence of life detection: The problem of unconceived alternatives. Astrobiology, 23(11), 1202-1212.n