Why "We Are All Star Stuff" Is a Poor Slogan

Trying to make astronomy seem more relevant to the average man, the astronomer Carl Sagan tried to popularize the slogan "we are all star stuff," a slogan that many people have since repeated.  But there are several reasons why the slogan "we are all star stuff" is a poor slogan to be using. 

Reason #1: We Don't Really Know How the Elements in Our Bodies Originated

Scientists sometimes boast about understanding how the elements originated.  Their claim is that the three lightest elements (hydrogen, helium and lithium) originated in the Big Bang, the sudden origin of the universe. They claim that other elements such as carbon and oxygen originated in stars. 

But the Big Bang theory does not correctly predict the amount of lithium. This shortfall is called the cosmological lithium problem.  A university press release tells us, "The standard models of the Big Bang that are currently used predict an abundance of Li-7, the main lithium isotope, which is three or four times more than that determined via astronomical observations."

The biggest failure of the Big Bang theory is that it incorrectly predicts the universe should consist of equal amounts of matter and antimatter.  We know from experiments in particle accelerators that when two high-energy photons collide at very high speeds, they produce matter and antimatter in equal amounts. In the first instants of the Big Bang, the universe should have consisted of such very high-energy photons, colliding with each other constantly, leaving equal amounts of matter and antimatter. A web page of the leading particle physics organization CERN starts out by saying, "The Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the early universe." But it is known that the amount of matter in the universe is actually at least 10,000 times greater than the amount of antimatter in the universe.  If even a tiny bit of antimatter came into contact with some matter here on our planet, it would create an explosion vastly bigger than a hydrogen bomb explosion. 

It seems the Big Bang theory is a far-from-perfected work-in- progress, and currently way, way off in its prediction about the ratio of matter and antimatter in the universe, and also way off in its predictions about lithium. So we cannot rule out the possibility that future refinements of the Big Bang theory will claim that the Big Bang produced not just the first three elements on the periodic table (hydrogen, helium and lithium) but the first eight elements on the periodic table (hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen). If that were to happen, then scientists would stop claiming that most of the mass in our bodies comes from stars. 

No one would be terribly surprised if scientists were to stop claiming that most oxygen and carbon came from stars.  The current theory to explain the origin of oxygen and carbon has a rather fishy smell to it.  The theory is that the oxygen and carbon on Earth came from one or more other stars. But the problem is that stars are very, very far apart.  The nearest star is 25 trillion miles away.  There has always been the problem of accounting for how so much material from other stars could have got here.  An average star will not shoot out matter that far away from it. 

There are rare events called supernova explosions in which stars explode violently and shoot out matter far away. Scientists claim that such explosions can account for planets like Earth getting elements such as oxygen.  Such claims may not be warranted. 

The Crab Nebula is a nebula caused by a supernova explosion nearly 1000 years ago:

 Credit: NASA

The NASA web page here lists the width of the Crab Nebula as six light-years. In the calculation below I'll assume a supernova casts heavy elements across an area of about 1000 light-years (more than the roughly 200 cubic light-years of the Crab Nebula).

Below we see some very rough calculations on the topic on how much of the galaxy should have been seeded with heavy elements from supernova explosions. I'll use the estimate of about 3 supernova explosions per century given by several sources. 

Length of our galaxy, light years	100000
Cubic size of galaxy, light years	1000000000000000
Number of supernova per year in our galaxy	0.03
Number of supernova in past 6 billion years in our galaxy	180000000
Number of cubic light years that get heavy elements from one supernova	1000
Number of cubic light years in our galaxy getting supernova heavy elements (past 6 billion years)	180000000000
Fraction of our galaxy getting heavy elements such as oxygen from supernovas during the past 6 billion years	.000180

These calculations suggest that less than two ten-thousandths of our galaxy should have got elements such as oxygen from supernova explosions.  So what confidence can we have in claims that the oxygen and carbon in our body came from distant stars?

Attempts to account for the origin of heavy elements by stellar activity don't quite work correctly. To account for the abundances we observe of gold and silver, scientists have appealed to far-fetched ideas like colliding neutron stars. A recent paper attempting a "latest and greatest model" confesses, "We find that silver is overproduced by a factor of 6, while gold is underproduced a factor of 5 in the model."  Oops, our "elements from the stars" guys still haven't got things right, it seems.  A 2019 paper states, "The origin of many elements of the periodic table remains an unsolved problem."

My purpose here is not to claim a refutation of current models of the origin of elements, but to merely point out that such models are far from proven.  We don't really know that the oxygen and carbon in our bodies came from some other star or stars.  Such elements could have originated before any stars existed, at the time of the Big Bang. 

Also, the entire universe could have been divinely created ten thousand years ago, a million years ago, a billion years ago, or any number of years ago, in some state of organization far greater than the hot, disorganized state of the Big Bang.  In that case it would be false that the carbon and oxygen in our bodies came from stars. Similarly,  a builder can create a Colonial-style house in Vermont that looks like it is 200 years old, but which is actually only three months old.  

Commenting on the prevailing hypothesis that the oxygen and iron in our solar system came from a nearby supernova explosion, one scientific paper states, "Numerous individual characteristics of the solar system when viewed collectively reveal that the supernova enrichment scenario is not sufficiently self-consistent." The author then discusses at some length some serious problems with such a hypothesis. 

Given all these uncertainties, claiming "we are all star stuff" is not a statement of scientific fact, but a statement of shaky scientist speculation.  

Reason #2: It Is Misleading to Use the Term "Stuff" to Refer to Our Enormously Organized Bodies

Let us consider the word "stuff" in the slogan "we are all star stuff." The word "stuff" implies a disorganized set of things or disorganized material.  For example, if someone said to you, "Let me show you some metal stuff I have in my garage," you would be surprised if the person opened his garage door and pointed at a car.  The word "stuff" implies some not-very-organized set of things.  For example, someone may say, "I bought some stuff at the food store," referring to various items that are not any very organized arrangement.  

But human bodies are not some disorganized stuff. Bodies are things that have an enormous degree of hierarchical organization.  In a body subatomic articles are organized into atoms, which are organized into simple molecules like amino acids, which are organized into vastly more complicated protein molecules consisting of hundreds of amino acids arranged in just the right way to produce a functional effect. Then such protein molecules are organized into protein complexes or organelles, which are organized into cells that may have thousands of such organelles. Then the cells are organized into tissues, which are organized into organs, which are organized into organ systems. "Stuff" is a misleading term to use about that type of organization. Using such a term for something as organized as the human body is like calling the Golden Gate Bridge "some metal stuff." 

Reason #3: We Are Mainly Our Minds Not Our Bodies, and It Is Dehumanizing and Morally Hazardous to Refer to Humans As "Stuff"

A human being is mainly a mind rather than a body. You are mainly your thoughts, your self, your personality, your memories, your beliefs, your feelings, and your way of living, none of which are any kind of material stuff. (The claim that memories are material has no basis in robust science.)  When you speak as if a human being is "some stuff," you are engaging in dehumanizing speech. Such speech is morally hazardous. Once a person starts talking about a human as "some stuff," he may feel no qualms about getting rid of that "stuff."  For example:

Captain: Get rid of all that stuff over there.

Corporal: How should I do that, with a machine gun or a flame thrower?

Slogans such as "we are all star stuff" are loved by those who wish to get people to think of themselves as mere accidents of nature. Get a man to think of himself as mainly some stellar debris, and you may get him close to thinking of himself as some mere accident of nature.  But ironically, in developing their theories of the origin of elements, scientists find themselves appealing to very lucky fine-tuning in physics which does not sound accidental.  For example, a paper entitled "Chemical Elements Abundance in the Universe and the Origin of Life" states this: "

"Element synthesis which started with p-p chain has resulted in several specific characteristics including lack of any stable isotope having atomic masses 5 [boron] or 8 [oxygen]. The carbon to oxygen ratio is fixed early by the chain of coincidences. These  remarkably fine-tuned conditions are responsible for our own existence and indeed the existence of any carbon based life in the Universe."

Postscript: At a mainstream science site, we read the following:

"Our study suggests that the Earth itself has been able to create lighter elements by nuclear transmutation,'  said Mikio Fukuhara, a co-author from Tohoku University's New Industry Creation Hatchery Center in Japan. If accurate, this is a revolutionary discovery because 'it was previously theorized that all of these elements were sourced from supernova explosions, whereas we postulate a supplementary theory,' Fukuhara said."

Apparently there are three possible ways in which the oxygen and carbon in our bodies might have naturally originated: in the Big Bang, in stars, or through earthly processes.  Since we don't know how the elements in our bodies originated, we should not be saying "we are all star stuff," as if we knew how the elements in our bodies originated.