Research

I have two primary research goals:

• Map and develop under-researched philosophical issues in the new sciences of astrobiology, microbiology, and synthetic biology, specifically with respect to philosophical issues surrounding the origins of life, life in the Universe, and the nature of life.
• Connect concepts in philosophy of science to advances in astrobiology in order to develop a practicable notion of universal biology.

My research focuses on related set of topics leading to ultimate question of universal biology. Universal biology is the study of what we can justifiably conclude about biology everywhere based on what we know about Life on Earth. To that end, I’ve organized a conference and written several papers setting up the groundwork for a monograph on the topic, namely Mariscal 2015 and Mariscal & Fleming 2017. In the first, I explore the extent to which our evidence limits the kinds of inferences we can make about lifelike entities in the Universe (the N=1 Problem). I believe there are justified inferences we can make about life elsewhere, although perhaps these are broader inferences than those that typically interest biologists or philosophers (e.g. size and energy limits, dependencies, etc.). In Mariscal & Fleming 2017, we explore three ways to universalize biology: by focusing on traits (as in convergent evolution), theory (as in population genetics), or substrate (as in artificial life). In sum, the domain of each is different; we should be careful to treat them as separate, but overlapping discussions.

Related to this work, I’ve touched on the universal biology of traits with respect to convergent evolution (Powell & Mariscal 2015, 2014, and 2017). In those works, I consider the extent to which we might be justified in inferring traits to be generalizable. All else being equal, the more often an independent and specific trait evolves in a more common environment, the more justified our claims about its universality are. I’ve also touched on the theory view of universal biology, specifically with respect to evolutionary theory (Booth, Mariscal, and Doolittle 2016). I take pragmatist stance with respect to Darwinism, arguing that diversity of microbial evolution should warrant us think about evolutionary as sort of ‘toolbox’ that includes range of mechanisms and processes which apply to different extents across the web of life.

Much of these discussions requires an understanding of what we mean by life itself (e.g. Mariscal & Doolittle 2017, and Mariscal 2021). I take a deflationary position in which I deny that the life category is a natural kind. I consider Life on Earth to be a historical particular. It belongs to many categories that might be natural kinds: evolving systems, biochemical systems, etc., but interested parties differ as to which is equivalent to the life category. This understanding of life implies that the business of defining life is conceptually mistaken, but that we can nevertheless study Life-like phenomena as long as we specify in which way it is similar to Life on Earth.

In order to understand what could be the case for Life-like phenomena elsewhere, it’s important to characterize Life on Earth. To that extent, much of my work has focused on the origin of life (Mariscal et al. 2019, Scharf et al. 2015, Mariscal & Doolittle 2015, and an in-progress paper on the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all life). In these works, I survey the open questions about life’s origin, describe the paths for developing work on the issue, and explore hypotheses over the origin and path of biological complexity. In short, the origin(s) of life are shrouded in mystery and each viable approaches involves philosophical commitments that sometimes conflict. (Note that many authors in several of papers, when I have served as lead author, this actually proved to more work than single-authored piece would have been.) A related paper, Mariscal & Brunet 2020, explores the extent and limits of Life on Earth. I believe the development of topic is hampered because philosophical commitments differ across scholars. That said, a pragmatic, adequate characterization of investigations may help bridge those differences.

My philosophical interests can sometimes be broader than this specific research trajectory. For example, I occasionally lend my support to biologists interested in philosophical issues (Stull et al. 2020). In that piece, we challenged the notion that biological ancestry estimations should be professionally forbidden. I also write general philosophy of science to introduce students to the issues that might come up in interdisciplinary cognitive science studies (Mariscal 2022). One current in-progress piece focuses on the professional tendency to privilege consistency in philosophy as the primary epistemic value rather than one among many. Lastly, I have also written on the societal impacts of revolutionary biotechnologies (Mariscal & Petropanagos 2016). I maintain that revolutionary technologies cannot be regulated in any static manner as they change too quickly. Instead, I believe we need a dynamic approach: a regulatory body focusing on the field.

Because the issues I study are most I am interested in the science that studies these issues most directly, astrobiology. I am co-editor in a journal (International Journal of Astrobiology), have co-founded a society on this (Society for Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology), organized a conference (SoCIA), and co-edited an anthology on the topic (Smith & Mariscal 2020). My plan is to write my monograph on universal biology and subsequently develop a textbook for the philosophy of astrobiology in hopes of helping shape the development of exciting new field.

The new sciences and technologies I investigate are not just interesting from the perspective of philosophy of science. I’ve also become interested in other humanistic issues raised by this new research. Astrobiology and synthetic biology both raise questions about value – should we commercialize outer space, should we actively send signals into space?, and should we modify our biology? I’ve recently become fascinated with this last question new gene-editing technologies have revolutionized what is possible in biology. I wrote a paper on that issue recently. Also founding member the Society for Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology (SSoCIA), and I hosted the second conference in Reno in 2018.