Exploring the broad implications of evolutionary theorist Lynn
Margulis's work, this collection brings together specialists across a
range of disciplines, from paleontology, molecular biology, evolutionary
theory, and geobiology to developmental systems theory, archaeology,
history of science, cultural science studies, and literature and
science. Addressing the multiple themes that animated Margulis's
science, the essays within take up, variously, astrobiology and the
origin of life, ecology and symbiosis from the microbial to the
planetary scale, the coupled interactions of earthly environments and
evolving life in Gaia theory and earth system science, and the
connections of these newer scientific ideas to cultural and creative
productions.
Dorion Sagan acquaints the reader with salient issues in Lynn Margulis's
scientific work, the controversies they raised, and the vocabulary
necessary to follow the arguments. Sankar Chatterjee synthesizes several
strands of current theory for the origin of life on earth. James Strick
tells the intertwined origin stories of James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis
and Margulis's serial endosymbiosis theory. Jan Sapp explores the
distinct phylogenetic visions of Margulis and Carl Woese. Susan Squier
examines the epigenetics of embryologist and developmental biologist C.
H. Waddington. Bruce Clarke studies the convergence of ecosystem
ecology, systems theory, and science fiction between the 1960s and the
1980s. James Shapiro discusses the genome evolution that results not
from random changes but rather from active cell processes. Susan Oyama
shows how the concept of development balances an over-emphasis on
genetic coding and other deterministic schemas. Christopher Witmore
studies the ways in which a concentrated animal feeding operation, or
CAFO, mixes up natural resources, animal lives, and human appetites. And
Peter Westbroek brings the insights of earth system science toward a new
worldview essential for a proper response to global change.
