We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down, and worry about our place in the dirt.
—Joseph Cooper, Interstellar
Abstract
This article analyzes astrobiology as a cosmopolitical project—the ways in which astrobiological “sensemaking” practices do philosophical, political, cultural, ontological, and ethical work as much as they do scientific work. More specifically, this article argues that astrobiology is engaged in the crafting of a new “origin myth” that makes sense of humanity’s place in the universe during our transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene. In doing so, this article traces the ways in which astrobiology employs scientific methodologies and engages with popular culture in ways that do four kinds of major work commonly found in origin myths: telling the origin story, demarcating the boundaries between self and the other, giving normative guidance, and declaring a shared societal purpose.
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13 September 2017
This erratum is published as name was misspelt in references in original publication. “In James Malazita’s ‘Astrobiology’s Cosmopolitics and the Search for an Origin Myth for the Anthropocene’, Daniel Coren’s last name is misspelled as ‘Cohen’ in the references. The correct entry should be ‘Coren D (2015) Anthropocentric biocentrism in a hybrid. Ethics Environ 20(2):48–60’.”
Notes
“Interview with Dr. Kelly Smith—Pt 1,” as transcribed, in: NASA Astrobiology Debates; http://www.nasadebates.org/Kelly-Smith.php.
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Malazita, J.W. Astrobiology’s Cosmopolitics and the Search for an Origin Myth for the Anthropocene. Biol Theory 13, 111–120 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-017-0281-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-017-0281-7