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Though Charles Darwin's theory of evolution
laid the foundations of modern biology, it did not tell
the whole story. Most remarkably, The Origin of Species
said very little about, of all things, the origins
of species. Darwin and his modern successors have shown
very convincingly how inherited variations are naturally
selected, but they leave unanswered how variant organisms
come to be in the first place.
In Symbiotic Planet, renowned scientist
Lynn Margulis shows that symbiosis, which simply means members
of different species living in physical contact with each
other, is crucial to the origins of evolutionary novelty.
Ranging from bacteria, the smallest kinds of life, to the
largest -- the living Earth itself -- Margulis explains
the symbiotic origins of many of evolution's most important
innovations. The very cells we're made of started as symbiotic
unions of different kinds of bacteria. Sex -- and its inevitable
corollary, death -- arose when failed attempts at cannibalism
resulted in seasonally repeated mergers of some of our tiniest
ancestors. Dry land became forested only after symbioses
of algae and fungi evolved into plants. Since all living
things are bathed by the same waters and atmosphere, all
the inhabitants of Earth belong to a symbiotic union. Gaia,
the finely tuned largest ecosystem of the Earth's surface,
is just symbiosis as seen from space.
Along the way, Margulis describes her initiation
into the world of science and the early steps in the present
revolution in evolutionary biology; the importance of species
classification for how we think about the living world;
and the way "academic apartheid" can block scientific
advancement. Written with enthusiasm and authority, this
is a book that could change the way you view our living
Earth.
Lynn Margulis, Distinguished Professor
in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts
at Amherst, has been a member of the National Academy of
Sciences since 1983. She is best known for her pathbreaking
work on the bacterial origins of cell organelles and for
her collaboration with James Lovelock on Gaia theory. Her
previous books include Symbiosis in Cell Evolution;
Five Kingdoms (with K. V. Schwartz); and (with Dorion
Sagan) Origins of Sex, Garden of Microbial Delights,
What Is Life?, What Is Sex?, and Slanted
Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis and Evolution.
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