Lynn Margulis
A prominent evolutionary theorist who championed the endosymbiotic theory, explaining the origin of eukaryotic cells.
Most quoted
"Science is not about control. It is about cultivating a perpetual condition of wonder in the face of something that forever grows one step richer and subtler than our latest theory about it."
— from Essay
"Symbiosis is the driving force of evolution. It is the process by which different organisms come together to form new, more complex systems."
"Science is not just a collection of facts, but a way of understanding the world. It is a process of inquiry, discovery, and exploration."
All quotes by Lynn Margulis (395)
The most important events in evolution are not mutations, but symbioses.
The planet is a giant bacterial mat.
The cell is a microcosm of the biosphere.
The future of life depends on our ability to understand and respect symbiosis.
The human body is a walking, talking ecosystem.
Evolution is a dance of cooperation and competition.
The biosphere is a single, vast, self-regulating organism.
The cell is the ultimate example of successful cooperation.
Life is a continuous process of becoming.
The greatest discovery of the 20th century was not DNA, but the Gaia hypothesis.
We are all interconnected, interdependent, and intermingled.
The history of life is a history of the Earth's surface.
The cell is a living fossil of ancient symbioses.
The human species is a recent arrival on a planet dominated by microbes.
The Earth is a living system, and we are its consciousness.
The boundaries between self and non-self are porous and dynamic.
Life is a continuous experiment in self-organization.
The biggest problem in biology is that people think they understand evolution, and they don't.
I am a scientist. I am not a believer. I am an observer.
The world is a bacterial planet.
Contemporaries of Lynn Margulis
Other Biologys born within 50 years of Lynn Margulis (1938–2011).