When we have found how the nucleus of atoms is built up we shall have found the greatest secret of all – except life. We shall have found the basis of everything – of the earth we walk on, of the air we breathe, of the sunshine, of our physical body itself, of everything in the world, however great or however small – except life. Ernest Rutherford, cited Frank S Pepper ‘The Wit and Wisdom of the 20th Century: A Dictionary of Quotations’, 1987
Why should this modest planet be the only inhabited world? To me it seems far more likely the cosmos is brimming over with life and intelligence. Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan, Cosmos: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean, PBS 1980
Welcome to the planet Earth. A place with blue nitrogen skies, oceans of liquid water, cool forests, soft meadows, a world positively rippling with life. In the cosmic perspective, it is for the moment unique. ibid.
The nature of life on Earth and the quest for life elsewhere are the two sides of the same question – the search for who we are. Professor Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan, Cosmos: One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue
Organic matter is abundant throughout the cosmos produced by the same chemistry everywhere. Perhaps given enough time the origin and evolution of life is inevitable on every clement world. ibid.
All life on our planet is closely related. We have a common organic chemistry and a common evolutionary heritage. And so our biologists are profoundly limited. They study a single biology. One lonely theme in the music of life. ibid.
We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and our culture that is well worth pondering. Carl Sagan
There is no other known snail that has a metal fortified shell. Even in the animal kingdom we don’t know of anything else that has a metal fortified shell. The animals have spent evolutionary time honing the composition of a shell to make it deflect predators, to make it strong. So it’s like having armour, right. Here’s this little animal that sits in this warm water that’s coming out, this metal ridge, and it’s sitting there mining these metals. Professor Cindy van Dover, marine biologist Duke University North Carolina
Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe. Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 1933
If the laws of science are framed at their most perfect, most symmetrical form, then life cannot exist at all. Professor Michio Kaku
The entire universe seems unreasonably suited to the existence of life. Almost contrived. We might say a put-up job. Professor Paul Davies
Maybe the reason they’re ominously quiet is because they’ve all died out. They’ve wiped themselves out or some horrible fate has befallen them. If it is all silence then that bodes ill for the future of humanity. Paul Davis
Mars is a better candidate for life in the early part of the solar system. Mars rocks are coming here all the time. Paul Davies
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster. David Hume
The very fact that we are here places restrictions on what the universe can look like. Professor Brendon Carter
I formulated the Strong Anthropic Principle: this says our universe must have those properties that allow intelligent life to develop in it at some stage. Brendon Carter
So far there’s no argument – in the form Carter originally put it the Weak Anthropic Principle merely says that we are observing the universe from the viewpoint of a very particular species – man. Professor Frank Tipler, Tulane University
The starting point of these ideas is to decide how important or unimportant mankind – human beings – are in the scheme of things. And there’s a very remarkable discovery of the last few years which at first sight suggests that human beings are very important. And that’s what we call the Fine Tuning of the universe. Professor Dennis Sciama, Cambridge University
This does of course raise the other question – if there’s been enough time for man to evolve, what’s the chance of there having been life evolved around other stars? Professor Martin Rees
Are we alone in the universe? It’s perhaps the biggest question ever asked. Martin Rees, Aliens: The Big Think, BBC 2016
It’s not organic beings we should be looking for, it’s machines. ibid.
‘The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.’ ibid. Bill Watterson
Is it a good idea for us to track them down? ibid.
The biologists were more sceptical. But they’d already begun to design experiments to test the possibility that micro-organisms may have survived on Mars. One theory was that they were lying dormant and that a cocktail of nutrients would awake them into life. Horizon: The Red Planet, BBC 1976
The process of chemical evolution necessary for life is not peculiar to our planet alone. Horizon: Message in the Rocks, BBC 1979
It’s how all of this develops from a fertilised egg is the central pull of modern biology. Horizon: Genesis, BBC 1986
Yet completely different animals start out as almost identical looking embryos suggest they may not be so different after all. ibid.
The Anthropic Principle: The universe was anthropocentric – the hub of all creation was man. Horizon: The Anthropic Principle, BBC 1987
The Anthropic Principle seems well named – forget other intelligences; the universe may well have given rise to man alone. ibid.
Weak Anthropic Principle: A universe remarkably in sympathy with our existence. Strong Anthropic Principle: A universe that gave birth to man. Participatory Anthropic Principle: a universe that man helps to create by his observations and understanding. Final Anthropic Principle: A universe in while life will never die out and where knowledge will increase for ever. ibid.
Is there anyone out there? Horizon: The Sharpest Show of the Universe, BBC 1990
It is the great Question. The Earth formed four and a half billion years ago. The first fossil microbes are in rocks almost four billion years old. By then life was already underway ... Why then has the great Question been impossible to answer? How against all odds did Life begin on Earth? Horizon: Life is Impossible, BBC 1993
Exactly which natural experiment was the one that gave rise to Life? That is the Problem. ibid.
Proteins are the powerhouse of Life. ibid.
Life clearly had begun during this maelstrom ... Comets and asteroids also shed tiny organic particles into space – they’re called Inter-planetary Dust Particles. ibid.
The floor of the ocean is home to exotic heat-loving organisms clustered round undersea volcanic rifts. The molten rock below creates steam vents and boiling ... hydrothermal systems of cracks and fissures in the Earth’s crusts. The heat-loving organisms thrive on these extreme conditions. ibid.
Streeter argues that these heat-loving autotrophic organisms feeding on carbon dioxide from the vents are a strong pointer to the nature of the origin of Life. ibid.
With the faults of atmospheric soup, the paucity of extraterrestrial organics, the discord over vents, the complexity of RNA, and the doubts over clay, the origin of Life has been waiting for a new idea. ibid.
After travelling across the solar system this ancient rock fell to earth as a meteorite. Inside, scientists found organic compounds, the building blocks of life. Through microscopes they saw strange shapes, fossil shadows of living creatures. Evidence for alien life. But there’s a catch. It was a terrible mistake. The date was 1961. And the shapes were soon shown to have an Earthly origin. Horizon: Aliens from Mars, BBC 1996
Three months ago evidence of life in a rock from space was announced again. This time has science got it right? ibid.
Bacteria flourish in other extreme environments too, miles underground and under crushing pressures on the ocean floor. ibid.
Life is not the only option; yet that is the interpretation NASA has chosen. ibid.