C-SPAN’s ‘After Words’ Discusses Our Cosmic Status
Ever feel that broadcast TV fails to tackle the big issues? I don’t mean the state of the economy, healthcare, the future of clean energy, or what B-list celebrities had for breakfast – I mean the Really Big Issues.
Ever feel that broadcast TV fails to tackle the big issues? I don't mean the state of the economy, healthcare, the future of clean energy, or what B-list celebrities had for breakfast - I mean the Really Big Issues. Like whether or not we're alone in the universe, whether life is somehow special, and whether or not our existence is at all significant in a cosmos filled with billions of trillions of stars and planets.
Well, it's your lucky day. Scientific American Mind editor, and writer of the Streams of Consciousness blog, Ingrid Wickelgren recently sat down with me to discuss my new book The Copernicus Complex. You can now catch the show here, or here, or on YouTube. We covered a lot of ground, from the ideas of Copernican mediocrity, to searching for the chemical fingerprints of life, and even how you can use a chicken to explain Bayesian probability theory (really). Take a look, and enjoy.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Caleb A. Scharf
Caleb A. Scharf is director of astrobiology at Columbia University. He is author and co-author of more than 100 scientific research articles in astronomy and astrophysics. His work has been featured in publications such as New Scientist, Scientific American, Science News, Cosmos Magazine, Physics Today and National Geographic. For many years he wrote the Life, Unbounded blog for Scientific American.
