Talk:Carbon chauvinism

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This article has a severaly dubious claim to validity, and reads like original research. A Google Scholar search turned up on 16 hits, none of which give a certain analysis of the phrase or its useage. If this article is not justified with credible citations within seven days I will nominate it for deletion. - Freechild 06:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

This article has a long and volatile history. The article originally started as Carbon chauvinism has evolved into Alternative biochemistry. At some point the article was retitle Alternative biochemistry and Carbon chauvinism was changed to a redirect link. The content specifically dealing with Carbon chauvinism, however did not fit well into Alternative biochemistry. In order to clean up the Alternative biochemistry page and streamline its rather long definition I removed the redirect page and extracted the content dealing with Carbon chauvinism. There is a lively discussion on the Talk:Alternative biochemistry that I think illustrates that this article was not original research, but in fact the work of many contributors. I am not sure if the content in the talk page should have been moved as well since it now make reference to both Carbon chauvinism and Alternative biochemistry. Perhaps you might suggest? I hope this addresses the issues you have raised. M stone 08:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm dubious about the lines "The term may be criticized as inaccurate since chauvinism is usually defined as unreasonable belief in superiority. The belief described, as carbon chauvinism is a belief that non-carbon based life is unlikely to exist, not a belief that such forms of life would be inferior if they did exist." Is there any source for criticism along these lines? 'Carbon chauvinism' could also be interpreted as "belief that carbon is superior to other elements as a basis for life", which would fit just fine with the belief that "non-carbon based life is unlikely to exist". Bryan Derksen 23:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article desperately needs real sources

I'm too busy/lazy to work on it myself, but I'll leave this pointer in case someone is inclined to work on it. Search Google books: [1]. The term carbon chauvinism was used by Carl Sagan (it is quite likely that he coined it, but I'm not sure). I especially recommend The Cosmic Connection, where he discusses it together with other "chauvinisms" such as temperature chauvinism, oxygen chauvinism, planetary chauvinism, water chauvinism, etc. [2] --Itub 08:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Remake

There are basically two sources available on this, that I can see: the Reason article from 1999 and David Darling. While we all have some affection for Darling, we can't be sure he isn't mirroring us (or us, him). By itself, a David Darling article does not confer notability. However, the Reason reference predates Wiki, so OK on basic notability (I had wanted to AfD this). In any case this is a term at the moment—it's not a full-blooded concept that has been discussed. It seems to me that the iteration I came across today, like the initial one three years ago, wanted to run with two words into an OR maze. That initial page got moved to Alternative biochemistry partly to avoid this OR problem. This recreated page shouldn't make the same OR mistake. It should talk about the term (are there other reliable mentions?). But it can't be a platform for "well ya, actually, carbon is great" or its opposite until a reliable someone has actually used this term in that regard. Marskell 19:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, Carl Sagan also used the term, so that could be a third source. --Itub 08:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

"he is not "crediting" him..." True enough. It would be nice to find earlier uses. Let's see now:

• It's a sub-chapter title in a bio of Sagan: http://williampoundstone.net/Sagan.html
• He uses the term 'chauvanism' in a speech but not in relation to carbon: http://seti.sentry.net/archive/public/1999/5-99/00000351.htm
• There's this, but no idea the reliability of the source: http://www.quantumnow.com/trek/life.html Marskell 09:36, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Cosmo/cosmyth.pdf. Marskell 10:07, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Sagan used it in 1973, in The Cosmic Connection. That's the earliest use I've seen so far. --Itub 14:21, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Itub, do you actually have the copy? We might add the quote. Marskell 16:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind. I should read down before posting.

[edit] Reference and question

Following up on what user Itub wrote above, Sagan employs the term about three-quarters of the way through chapter 6 of The Cosmic Connection. Here is the reference:

• Sagan, Carl (1973). The Cosmic Connection. Anchor Books (Anchor Press / Doubleday), 47. 

If this "carbon chauvinism" article is in Wikipedia, then how about articles on the other points Sagan mentions, such as oxygen and temperature? To those one might add articles on molecular chauvinism, matter chauvinism, type-G-star chauvinism, and so forth. Habitable-zone chauvinism? Absence-of-intense-magnetospheric-radiation chauvinism? It seems that the list of "chauvinism" articles could get out of hand. Would a single, more-general article on factors related to life, with separate sections on each, be better? -- Astrochemist 15:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Astro, do you have a quote to go with that ref?

I agree with the implication that this article might not even belong at all. At this point, we have independent mentions, which is good, but still only a handful. We might add a bit more and then offer it up on AfD to see if people feel it should merged somewhere.

"A single, more-general article on factors related to life." Given that we already alternative biochemistry (arrived at from the original iteration of this), carbon-based life and, of course, life, I think a new page would be redundant. Those other "chauvinisms" would only require addition somewhere if others beyond Sagan made reference to them. Actually, the Reason article does mention molecular chauvinism, I think. Marskell 16:10, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure either that there is enough about this topic to justify a full article. But the idea could probably be included in the astrobiology article. --Itub 18:43, 15 September 2007 (UTC)