Problems with Astrobiology Article

[Matthew C. Woods, Jr.]

I'd like us to work on the astrobiology article, since I think there are some problems with it.

Mainly, it looks more like a stand-alone essay than a wiki encyclopedia entry.  While I'm aware that "articles should not be modular or mere collections of facts that can easily be reshuffled[,]" the astrobiology doesn't look very concise.

The article also reads like a press release that answers questions with terms that raise questions themselves. (e.g., What is the difference between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary?  What's a biosignature, and why wasn't it defined earlier in the article?).

Lastly, practically all of this article is a rewriting of information copied from NASA's Astrobiology Roadmap, meaning we only have one source.  Apart from how articles shouldn't be the simple moving around of sentences and paragraphs that someone else has written, NASA's view is limited to Earthlike life (explained in depth in What Does a Martian Look Like?).

[Sergio Luis]

In fact, I just started the article, as an experience with Citizendium.

I used the most authoritative source on the field. If you seek through the referential sites listed on the article, you'll see that all of them refer do Nasa. Indeed there are other visions, but they aren't as widely accepted as Nasa's. I just didn't want do risk the trustness of the article from its beginning.

And yes, I based it on press releases, moving around sentences and paragraphs. Because I didn't intend to write a well crafted wiki encyclopedia entry. I just wanted to start the process that eventually would lead to such a good article. After creating it, I just sat back to watch how it would evolve. (Unfortunately, it did not evolved so much...)

In short, feel free to improve it! I will just interfere in case someone makes any big damage to it.

[Peter P. Faletra]

I think that the National Academies of Sciences produced a booklet on the possibilities of extra-solar life.  It proposed a number of questions on what other forms of life might possible be based.  I have looked in my library for it but have not yet put my hands on it.  It might be worth a try going to the NAS web site and fishing through their publications.

pf

[Larry Sanger]

I myself started zillions of philosophy articles for Wikipedia based on lecture notes.  They weren't really encyclopedia articles, to start with...they were lecture notes.  But anyway, I'd just like to say that I think this sort of thing is OK, as long as we view encourage reworking of the original material...which is exactly what you all seem to agree on here.