LIFE BEYOND EARTH

Abstract

SOME YEARS AGO, THEODOSIUS Dobzhansky, a renowned geneticist working at the University of California, Davis, was astonished by the increasing prominence of creationism in American culture. In response, he wrote an essay with a tide that is often quoted: Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution ( Am. Biol. Teacher 1973 , 35, 125). Two decades later, an opportunity arose to enlarge evolutionary concepts far beyond terrestrial biology when National Aeronautics & Space Administration officials proposed to fund research in a new field to be called astrobiology. Their vision was largely inspired by public interest in ALH84001, the Antarctic meteorite that, in 1996, was found to possibly contain traces of early life on Mars. The basic principles of astrobiology caught on, and perhaps a thousand scientists worldwide are now engaged in research that would fall under this rubric. Kevin W. Plaxco and Michael Gross have written a book ...