The inner logic of ... Much of it is imposed by thermodynamics; some is facilitated by catalysts. Some is refined by genes. And part stems from the v… - Nick Lane

I see myself as a biologist or a biochemist, but... in the context of as a broader subject, it forces me to wrestle with physics, with cosmology, with chemistry, with geology, with earth sciences or planetary sciences, and that's a thrill. ...I think it's what most people are drawn into science in the first place for, because science, in its biggest sense, is what inspires people, and by the time that you've got to the level of doing a PhD, it's narrowed down so much that a lot of people are almost forced to lose their imagination, and their creativity as a scientist... I think astrobiology is a subject that puts all that back in, in heaps.

[T]here's a limit to just how far vents can take you... but... once you've gotten as far as , then you've freed yourself from a fairly small energy flow, a fairly tight and focused energy flow.

Does anyone care if there's an awful waste of space? It's a form of wishful thinking... We would love for the Universe to be full. ...Personally, I grew up on the Hichiker's Guide to the Universe, those kind of crazy science fiction yarns, or Star Wars or whatever it may be. The idea that the Universe is full of other intelligent beings, all kind of finding a way of getting along or having a war, but having some heroism thrown in, but... it's all human vision of ourselves thrown onto a cosmic scale. Do I believe any of it? No... Is there anything that I think, from my understanding as a biologist, that would tend to lead to that? No... Does it matter if it's a tremendous waste of space? Well, that's to say "What's the point of the Big Bang?" I don't know. The idea that the Universe may be completely empty apart from matter and energy? It would seem to be, perhaps, the default hypothesis. The fact that we find life is surprising. It would be nice if there were laws of the Universe that tended to give rise to life. Maybe there are at the level of bacteria. I don't see it at the level of large, morphologically complex beings... I think it's emotive. It's pleasing, but I doubt it's true.