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Thursday, May 24, 2012

7 of 7 - A Life of Science: Lynn Margulis Opens the Gaian Era

Dear Earthlings:

you've faithfully followed this series to finally arrive at the beginning. The two snapshots of this week are part of the symposium's intro. Who was Lynn Margulis? With whom can we compare her? Many names of great significance came up, including Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin, and Humboldt. But most of all she was free. She thought with her own head and she was fearless. And she was fortunate enough to be in a time and place where the potential of her being could be actualized. And she was wise enough to stay in that space of freedom even when conforming would have been easier. That's why those comparisons are well deserved. Authentic science is not science-for-profit, and it doesn't come easy, yesterday as today. But the mind is a wonderful machine and life a great experiment. And if you've come so far in this mini journey, perhaps you've developed an appreciation for Lynn Margulis and her view of evolution. Remember it's very simple. If the Gaia hypothesis is true, every time you feel like helping someone, every time that impulse to help gets a hold of you, every time you share resources, every time you're frugal, every time you're generous, every time you take care of an ecosystem near you, you're simply acting according to nature and are helping the process of evolution one itty bit step further. Isn't that nice?

James Walker introduces Lynn s friend, professor of "hallucinogenic plants." Did Lynn "know" nature in the "Biblical sense, I mean from experience? That's a good thing for a scientist, no?

Peter Westbroeck of Leiden University in Holland hails Lynn Margulis as a modern day Copernicus.

Dear Earthlings:

Education is the heart of democracy. And that includes education to love. It comes in many forms. Including learning about Lynn Margulis, the role of collaboration in evolution, and Gaia theory.

Did you enjoy the post? Let us know! Yours truly appreciates your attention. The comments box is open.

Come back! And stay tuned for more wonders.

Namaste,

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD

Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire

Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities

University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Poly Planet GAIA Blog:
http://polyplanet.blogspot.com/

Website: www.serenagaia.com

Be Appraised of Ecosex Community Project PostaHouse
Become a Fan: www.facebook.com/GaiaBlessings

Author's Page/Lists all books: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JS1VKA

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Book a vacation at gateway to Gaia, Playa Azul:

Read Victoria Alexander's article on Digital Journal

Thursday, May 17, 2012

6 of 7 - A Life of Science: Lynn Margulis Opens the Gaian Era

Dear Earthlings:

two important posts this week. They came at the beginning of the conference about Lynn Margulis, from her son and co-author of many books and from one of her students. They bring tidings of other avatars of Gaia theory and of what this all means when it comes to schools, textbooks, and children.

Dorion Sagan, Lynn's older son, reads an essay sent over by James Lovelock. Gaia is the shared theory, Lovelock's macrocosm perspective offers the view from above, from the firmament where the third planet is visible. Lynn's microcosmic perspective offers the view from below, from the microbes, the cells, the molecules that make us feel alive when we pinch them. As above so below. That's the proof that Gaia theory is meaningful.

Emily Case vows to "liberate Lynn s ideas from the 'box' and move them to the mainstream text." A science teacher formed at the school of Lynn Margulis, she agrees that research and teaching come together when the laboratory of life is one's classroom. Symbiogenesis is when a cell enters another cell and becomes its nucleus. It's a form of collaboration that resulted in the first big leap of evolution. Now it's in a box, because the main narrative of evolution is Darwinian: it all happened because of competition. When there is a critical mass behind Gaia theory, collaboration will be the main narrative of evolution, with competition as a footnote: the error resulting from a failure to cooperate with the natural way of doing things.

Perhaps some day kids will come home from school and say: "Mom, pop, today I learned that without collaboration life would not exist. It was discovered by Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock. Before them, the opposite was believed. People were nasty and rude. Now we know better. How can I help you this afternoon?"

Did you enjoy the post? Let us know! Yours truly appreciates your attention. The comments box is open.

Come back! And stay tuned for more wonders.

Namaste,

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD

Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire

Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities

University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Poly Planet GAIA Blog:
http://polyplanet.blogspot.com/

Website: www.serenagaia.com

Be Appraised of Ecosex Community Project PostaHouse
Become a Fan: www.facebook.com/GaiaBlessings

Author's Page/Lists all books: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JS1VKA

YouTube Uploaded Videos: http://www.youtube.com/SerenaAnderlini

Book a vacation at gateway to Gaia, Playa Azul

Read Victoria Alexander's article on Digital Journal

Thursday, May 10, 2012

5 of 7 - A Life of Science: Lynn Margulis Opens the Gaian Era

Dear Earthlings:

how difficult it is for a genius to be appreciated in her homeland. Often what we do reverberates far away and then comes back to us as the appreciation our neighbors would never give. This also happened to Lynn Margulis.

She interpreted the nucleated cell as a major leap in evolution, one that happens by collaboration. Her taxonomy of species reflects this. Many thought she was just disobedient. After all why make a new taxonomy when one already exists? Science is just habit, run-of-the-mill stuff, no?

She also looked up scientists from the Soviet Union who had great ideas without the means to prove them. She translated them and designed experiments to test these ideas. Many thought she did not give proper credit and was not original. After all, what comes from the Soviet Union is always suspicious, right? Science is just an American way to reinvent the wheel, no?

Antonio Lazcano, from the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, explains this, including how unfair it is to make these insinuations against Lynn Margulis. How this parochial blindness only succeeds in keeping people in the United States ignorant about the value of her contributions.

Antonio Lazcano: Lynn's taxonomy of species reflected her complex view of life and the biosphere.

Antonio Lazcano: Lynn made her predecessors known, proved their hypotheses by tests, and had their papers translated into English. Many of them were evolution scientists from Russia who emphasized symbiosis over selection collaboration over competition, which had been Darwin's main point.

Did you enjoy the post? Let us know! Yours truly appreciates your attention. The comments box is open.

Come back! And stay tuned for more wonders.

Namaste,

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD

Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire

Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities

University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Poly Planet GAIA Blog:
http://polyplanet.blogspot.com/

Website: www.serenagaia.com

Be Appraised of Ecosex Community Project PostaHouse
Become a Fan: www.facebook.com/GaiaBlessings

Author's Page/Lists all books: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JS1VKA

YouTube Uploaded Videos: http://www.youtube.com/SerenaAnderlini

Book a vacation at gateway to Gaia, Playa Azul:

Read Victoria Alexander's article on Digital Journal

Thursday, May 3, 2012

4 of 7 - A Life of Science: Lynn Margulis Opens the Gaian Era

Dear Earthlings:

more snapshots this week. What is science? Who first talked about the "biosphere"? Is music a form of knowledge too? The big question come up when the topic is Lynn Margulis. She was "fearless" her son Dorion Sagan says in Digital Journal. That's how she invented a new episteme, a new interpretation of what life is, from cell to cosmos.

Martin Brasier, of Oxford University, explains how specialization leads to mass extinctions in the history of life s evolution. Oh my! The we really need scholars whose horizon is the entire system. Have you been wondering what science is? Brasier explains, with a pinch of British humor: "A unique system for the measurement of doubt." Just in case you'd confuse it with religion or other belief systems shamefaced enough to offer prepackaged "truths."

Douglas Zook, of Boston University, compares Lynn Margulis to Alexander Humboldt, a 19th century American scientist, pioneer of ecology and biosphere. Like Morgan, he was a defender and advocate of indigenous people who saw the need to merge disciplines to look at the cosmos as a whole.

Flute music as audacious as Lynn, at the Ayurvedic lunch entertainment. Because, yes, science is also music!

Did you enjoy the post? Let us know! Yours truly appreciates your attention. The comments box is open.

Come back! And stay tuned for more wonders.

Namaste,

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD

Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire

Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities

University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Poly Planet GAIA Blog:
http://polyplanet.blogspot.com/

Website: www.serenagaia.com

Be Appraised of Ecosex Community Project PostaHouse
Become a Fan: www.facebook.com/GaiaBlessings

Author's Page/Lists all books: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JS1VKA

YouTube Uploaded Videos: http://www.youtube.com/SerenaAnderlini

Book a vacation at gateway to Gaia, Playa Azul:

Read Victoria Alexander's article on Digital Journal: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/321533#ixzz1qfRQq68Y