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What is “Astrobiocentrism” and how will its understanding play a role in the
future of space travel?
Gabriel Valenzuela Rivera
College of Engineering, University of Miami
WRS 107: First-Year Writing STEM
Prof. April Mann
February 27, 2025
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The evolution of human travel has been an extensive one. As a species we were
limited to only walking and even at most just running, but through millennia, human
ingenuity advanced our capabilities all the way to mastering flight, albeit trapped in big
metal boxes thrust through the air. Our history has been defined by the advancements
we have been able to procure; every major stepping stone has “unlocked” a new stage
in our productivity and role in the world. Maritime and aerial travel have allowed us to
connect intercontinentally, facilitating trade (fundamental principle of human society)
and enabling the exchange between countless cultures. Looking at the past and our
perhaps exponential growth has led many to believe that in a very near future, we will
have succeeded in the onerous task of mastering space travel, and holding said
outlook, dedicate their research and work toward laying a groundwork for such a
hypothetical scenario. Such is the case with Octavio Alfonso Chon-Torres and 8 other
researchers and collaborators on the published research article: “Astrobiocentrism:
reflections on challenges in the transition to a vision of life and humanity in space”.
Writing is an age-old discipline that has also played a crucial role in the
advancement of humanity. By facilitating the sharing of ideas and knowledge across
distance and time bounds, it exponentially increased the rate at which people were able
to communicate with each other and led to the proliferation of scientific, cultural, social,
and artistic developments. Throughout the years, sub-disciplines have defined and
honed their own respective types of writing, particularly the scientific disciplines, and
thus we can now consider the concept of ‘Scientific Writing’ as its own facet of writing,
complete with its own techniques, niches, and patterns. Despite the perception that
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scientific writing happens to be more ‘serious’, ‘empirical’, or ‘straightforward’, it is
important to recognize that like any other discipline of writing, it is filled with its unique
share of rhetorical layers, themselves containing the underhanded messages of the
writings.
In analyzing these rhetorical contents, we can better understand and discern the
true significance and implications of scientific writings which usually discuss research on
important and generally undiscussed subjects, as well as interesting
paradigm-redefining theories that can lay the groundwork for innovation and the
betterment of humanity in both the near and distant future. To this goal of successfully
analyzing scientific rhetoric, writer Christopher Thaiss, in his work: Writing Science in
the Twenty-First Century outlines 6 main characteristics to identify and dive into. These
are:
1.​ Purpose(s)
2.​ Intended Readers
3.​ Order of Information
4.​ Types of Evidence
5.​ Style and Tone
6.​ Graphic Presentation - And the changing definition of writing
The aim of this paper is to, based on these characteristics, conduct a rhetorical analysis
of a scientific article by the title: Astrobiocentrism: reflections on challenges in the
transition to a vision of life and humanity in space.
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As the title suggests, this particular writing, the work of multiple authors, all
experts in their respective fields, provides a deep and detailed discussion of the
hypothetical and speculative future, particularly the “expansion of mankind into space”.
(Chon-Torres et al. 2024)) It goes over a wide range of topics relevant to its central line
of inquiry, among these: Astrobiocentrism, Astrobiosemiotics, and Astrotheology.
Conducting a rhetorical analysis can be of help in identifying the intricacies by which
these topics and intricacies are communicated not only within the scientific community
but also with the rest of the world. This analysis will not follow the particular order in
which Thaiss laid out his particular aspects of rhetoric, but rather lay out interconnected
examples taken from the text that in collaboration establish a common argument.
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Thaiss’s firsts elements are Purpose and Intended Readers, but to effectively
discern such open and general aspects we can first take a look at some of the latter
ones. The most obvious one is Style and Tone as it is probably the most noticeable
aspect to any reader. The style is very formal, with very long sentences that strictly
adhere to the relevance of the article. Its vocabulary is predominantly scientific, as the
article even bases itself upon ‘made-up’ terms like astrobiocentrism, a term coined by
the creators behind the article. Sentences often contain fragments that may be hard to
process for conventional readers: “...mineralogenetic and metallogenetic
studies…mineralization processes, petrogenetic and geochemical distribution of the
mineral concentrations…” (Chon-Torres et al. 2024)) “...epistemic anthropocentrism on
par with epistemic geobiocentrism”. (Chon-Torres et al. 2024)) It is very clear that such
language is not by any means intended towards regular readers of any and all walks of
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life, but rather a specifically educated spectrum of individuals that can understand the
intricacies presented. After all, Thaiss himself says that a formal tone is “...expected in
most peer-reviewed STEM journals…” as contrary to a more commonplace vocabulary,
“...-accessible to more people.” (Thaiss, 2019 , p. 36). While clearly its audience is not
the everyday folk, the tone comes off as informative, and utilizes terminology that spans
many various disciplines, suggesting its intention of weaving together many of these to
create the previously discussed “groundwork” for the future of humanity.
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Taking a look at the Types of Evidence lets us know that the article is not really
the publication of new research but a reflection and look into the future based on the
research of countless others across a plethora of fields. In fact, little over three entire
pages were needed to accommodate the amount of sources cited in the paper. There
were instances in which singular in-text citations contained entire lists of multiple
publications by a same researcher: “(Cockell, 2005, 2011b, 2011a; Persson, 2013,
2019)” (Chon-Torres et al. 2024) Sifting through every single one of these sources
would hardly be expected of individuals invested and involved in the scientific
communities, let alone from the everyday, common folk. Thaiss’s conclusion can’t be as
easily applied to this article, as the research is more hypothetical and theoretical in
nature than empirical. It does not necessarily discuss the hard data and results that
Thaiss says define its purpose. However, the sole amount of evidence and the
countless references to other works do communicate that the paper is meant to be read
by a well versed audience.
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We can also take a look at an aspect like Order of Information to derive who is
the intended audience. While the order of argumentation does follow a structure, it is not
one in which each subsection necessarily leads into the next one, but rather each one
separately establishes an independent conclusion/concept, as if crossing out items for
discussion from a bulleted list. This particular style does not facilitate reading for the
common person, who usually tends to glance at progressively connected subheadings
and grasp the general argument of a paper thanks to the logical progression of its
subjects. Despite this, and in accordance with Thaiss’s discussion on Order of
Information, regardless of what the true intended audience may be, the actual
structuring of a research paper allows both types of readers to take away the most
important ideas by engaging with the abstract (Thaiss, 2019, p. 33), the very first
paragraph in almost every research publication. That is, however, where the similarities
end, seeing as the scientific reader is intended to be compelled by what the abstract
promises the rest of the article to be holding, while the common reader sees no point in
going in any deeper. (Thaiss, 2019, p.33)
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Finally, we can take a look at the Graphic Presentation of the paper and its
elements, or rather a lack thereof. It is easily noticeable that the publishing lacks any
sort of table, graph, or any outstanding visual element other than the occasional bold
lettering reserved for the headings of each main section. These types of elements could
have made the reading easier, as graphic elements can help explain or represent the
words of the paper in a more digestible manner. Additionally, the lack of these page
breaks presents the paper as one endless series of wordage, which might seem
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onerous for just about any casual reader. While Thaiss concludes that the inclusion of
visual elements aids any type of audience with digesting what a text is trying to convey,
I believe that what Chon Torres et al. intended to do was not communicate any exciting
results or make any hypotheses based on empirical data, rather the very nature of the
article (an ‘ethical framework’ for the future of space exploration) meant that its
presentation did not need any visual aiding elements, and that just text was enough to
accomplish its purpose.
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Taking into consideration the six elements defined by Thaiss, we can reach the
conclusion that this articles definitely aimed at the scientific reader rather than the
ordinary one. Moreover, not just any scientifically inclined reader, but those with
particular interest in any of the fields included under the theoretical framework of
‘Astrobiocentrism’. This is of course extremely interesting and exciting, as we are
witnessing the possible inception of a new field of science, or perhaps even a new
philosophical outlook on life and humanity’s actual importance and footprint in
comparison to the enormous scale of the universe. As such, it is imperative that this
article reach the corresponding disciplines, ensuring that their necessary collaboration,
and by consequence, the next stage in our advancement as a species.
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Bibliography:
Chon-Torres, O. A., Chela-Flores, J., Dunér, D., Persson, E., Milligan, T.,
Martínez-Frías, J., Losch, A., Pryor, A., & Murga-Moreno, C. A. (2024).
Astrobiocentrism: reflections on challenges in the transition to a vision of life and
humanity in space. International Journal of Astrobiology, 23(e6), 1–17.
https://doi.org/10.1017/s1473550424000016
Thaiss, C. (2019). Writing Science in the Twenty-First Century (pp. 21–41). Broadview
Press.
*****AI was NOT used throughout any stage of this paper*****