James Lovelock

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Kevin Kelly, out of control, 1994                                           [ ]

p.73

James Lovelock, a soft-spoken British biochemist

Cornwall, England

  Lovelock told them [NASA] he could determine whether there was life on a planet by looking through a telescope. He could measure the spectrum of a planet's atmosphere, and thereby determine its composition. The makeup of the bubble of gases surrounding a planet would yield the secret of whether life inhabited the sphere. You therefore didn't need to hurl an expensive canister across the solar system to find out. He already knew the answer. 

   In 1967, Lovelock wrote two papers predicting that Mars would be lifeless based on his interpretation of its atmosphere. 

p.73

   How did Lovelock know?

   (Kevin Kelly, out of control, 1994, filename: ooc-mf.pdf  )

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