The Copernicus Complex Quotes

“However, some scientists argue for what’s called convergent evolution, the idea that there are only a finite number of useful biological blueprints, and that evolution will always drift toward them. For complex organisms, this argument has been used to help explain how similar “camera eyes” exist in both vertebrates (like humans) and cephalopods (like squid), even though we and they are on evolutionary tracks that parted a very long time ago.”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Caleb A. Scharf

“...life is a collection of phenomena at the boundary between order and chaos.”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Caleb A. Scharf

“Our place in the universe is special but not significant, unique but not exceptional. The Copernican Principle is both right and wrong, and it’s time we acknowledge that fact.”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Caleb A. Scharf

“I’d argue that these facts are pushing us toward a new scientific idea about our place in the cosmos, a departure from both the Copernican and anthropic principles, and I think it’s well along the road to becoming a principle in its own right. Perhaps we could call it a “cosmo-chaotic principle,” the place between order (from the original Greek kósmos, meaning a well-ordered system) and chaos. Its essence is that life, and specifically life like that on Earth, will always inhabit the border or interface between zones defined by such characteristics as energy, location, scale, time, order and disorder. Factors such as the stability or chaos of planetary orbits, or the variations of climate and geophysics on a planet, are direct manifestations of these characteristics. Too far away from such borders, in either direction, and the balance for life tips toward a hostile state. Life like us requires the right mix of ingredients, of calm and chaos—the right yin and yang.”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Caleb A. Scharf

“In other words, we’d calculate our significance in the absolute totality of all possible realities.”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities

“There is no doubt, though, that for us an alternate set of planetary circumstances could easily have led to a different development of natural philosophy, and a radically alternative scientific history.”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities

“perhaps none of these attributes were inevitable results of natural selection. Maybe they were sheer dumb luck—after all, brains like ours may have arisen only once in nearly 4 billion years of life on Earth. That hardly suggests a great evolutionary strategy.”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities

“Any claims of life operating via some kind of truly alternative biochemistry are at present unsubstantiated,”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities

“In a few billion years, previously distant worlds like Venus and Mars may become our nemesis, colliding with the Earth in events that could only be described as the end of everything as we know it.”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities

“If we consider just those worlds similar in size to the Earth—let’s say, in a range from half its diameter to about four times its diameter—it is obvious that there must be anywhere from a few billion to a few tens of billions of these planets in the Milky Way. In fact, if we consider only those orbiting their stars at the right distances to allow for moderate surface temperatures and liquid water, some studies suggest a galaxy-wide population of more than 20 billion and even as many as 40 billion.”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities

“This means that in looking around at the league of extraordinary planets, you will find that the overwhelming majority are in dim stellar systems that steadily pump out energy for their small rocky and icy offspring for a hundred times longer than we can expect the Sun to.”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities

“But there are a couple of other stable flavors of magnesium around, with 25 and 26 particles in their atomic nuclei. In the CAIs there is proportionately more of this 26-particle”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities

“200-square-mile region. The second came in September with a fireball entry over the small town of Murchison in eastern Australia, and left behind about two hundred pounds of primitive matter.”
― Caleb Scharf, The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities