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

Dear Earthlings:

two more snapshots this week.  Astrobiology: the science that studies the life of astral bodies.  Oh my!  These are big questions for yours truly.  I'm an earth sign and my imagination doesn't travel that far in space.  But yes, if Gaia, the third planet, has a "life," a "biography," so must other astral bodies too.  Lynn Margulis made contributions in this area too.  

Lynn Rothschild explains what Astrobiology asks: where do we come from? Where are we going? Are we alone? In a cosmic way. Rothschild was inspired by Lynn Margulis who understood how important astrobiology would be for the future.  Now we know that stars have planets too.  The search for "intelligent life" continues. 

Penelope Boston speaks of extant life, extinct life, and everything in between. Could extinct life, as in rocks, Mars, become extant again?   Is extinction an interlude, as in the tale of Rick Van Winkle?  Microbes exist in rocks and on Mars too!  Finally yours truly gets what astrobiology is.  It could be compared to the genre of science fiction if it were literature.  "Yes," says Penelope, "when I teach astrobiology I often ask students to read a science fiction novel and evaluate how plausible it is from a technical, scientific point of view."  Evolution only makes sense in the context of astrobiology, or is it vice versa?  And in any event, is it fair to define life as what feels like life if you are a human?  Again, you hit the big question when around Lynn Margulis.   

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

   

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

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

Dear Earthlings:

two more snapshots from the Lynn Margulis conference this week.  How many angles to Gaia theory!  Each discipline has something to gain from it.  Each discourse can integrate it beneficially. 

Bruce Clarke, professor of English at Texas Tech, claims he became convinced of Gaia theory when he figured that "Gaia is a metabiotic system," not an organism in the conventional sense.  "Gaia theory" he concludes, "is Systems Theory."  That's how the new scientific paradigm gets integrated in new fields of study in the humanities.

Mary Catherine Bateson speaks of influences.  Which direction?  Paradigm shift happens when a person responds to the age based on what the age demands.  So influences go in both directions.  Collaboration vs competition.  There is a cultural need to value collaboration.  Science can use collaboration to account for what isn't explained by competition.  The influence goes from a cultural to a natural dimension, and vice versa.  Interpretations is what science and culture are made of.  As a listener, yours truly notices what an admirable group of people has gathered to celebrate Lynn Margulis.  Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, in Mary Catherine's family, are two of the most remarkable American thinkers! 

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

   

Follow us in the social media

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:

Playa Azul, Western Puerto Rico

Book Online

Find an apartment to stay in Hormigueros

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

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

Dear Earthlings:

"A three-day symposium, "Celebrating a Life of Science: In Memory of Lynn Margulis," was held [on] March 23-25th, at the University of Massachusetts, where Margulis taught evolutionary science for decades," opens Victoria N. Alexander on Digital Journal.

Yours truly was blessed with being present at this momentous gathering of the minds.  From microscope to telescope, from cell to cosmos, Gaia is the overarching theory of the new era.  Lynn Margulis celebrated for ushering the new wisdom.  

Yours truly is happy to share snapshots of the speakers, with brief comments about their significance.

Jennifer Margulis shares about her mother's birth in a hospital, something new in 1938, and of her suffering episiotomies at giving birth to her first three kids.  It is now known that these genital cuts help physicians more than babies or women.  Lynn studied the problem, and when Jennifer came along, she refused.  The doctor approached scissors in had, and she got up from the delivery bed to stop him from using them.  Thank you Lynn!  The episiotomy I suffered ruined my sexual life for ten years and kept me from wanting more kinds.  Somebody had to start.  Thanks to you, Lynn, now many women can choose water and squatting positions when giving birth to a baby. 

William Irwin Thompson, of Lindisfarne, speaks of the cultural implications of Lynn Margulis's science of symbiosis: collaboration is the overarching narrative of evolution, competition is a footnote.  He's a independent philosopher known for his intuitive thinking.  Here are the big questions: What does this mean for us humans?  Are we going to go along with "nature" or insist on being different?  

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

   

Follow us in the social media

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:

Playa Azul, Western Puerto Rico
Book Online

Find an apartment to stay in Hormigueros

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

Lynn Margulis: A Life In Science - U Mass Amherst, March 23-25

Dear Earthlings:

a symposium about Lynn Margulis is coming up this spring.  Yours truly has a special appreciation for this scientist extraordinaire with a special enchantment for the symbiosis that animates nature with love.  She suggests you mark your calendar and stay tuned for the program-in-the-making.  

Science is where what appeared absurd yesterday may have the ring of truth tomorrow.  Margulis was a scientist true to her voice--not the fashions of the day.  If paradigmatic shifts are your province, be part of this opportunity to learn about her legacy.  What is love?  What is sex?  What is symbiosis on planet Earth?  Yours truly anticipates these to be some of the questions on the table.  She invites you to make this project your gift to the Earth for the Holidays.

Listen to the announcement by those in charge of the Margulis legacy:

Please Save the Dates

Lynn Margulis Symposium—A Life in Science: in Memory and Celebration

Friday March 23 to Sunday March 25, 2012

The University of Massachusetts, in collaboration with the family and friends of Lynn Margulis (1938-2011), cordially invites you to a Symposium, March 23-25, 2012, celebrating her life and work. Although the Symposium is still in its early planning stages, we wanted to alert you and other interested parties you may know in order to provide the lead-time needed to save these dates and arrange for travel to and from Amherst, Massachusetts.

We are very excited about this opportunity to gather in memory of Professor Margulis, and to explore the history, importance, and future of her intellectual accomplishments.

As plans take shape, they will be posted to <www.geo.umass.edu/margulis_symposium.html>.

Preliminary Schedule of Events

Friday March 23, 2012

Welcome and Lynn Margulis Film Festival

Saturday March 24, 2012

Welcome followed by seminars on Gaia, astrobiology, symbiosis, and a tribute dinner with Peter Westbroek, William Irwin Thompson, and a new essay by James Lovelock

Sunday March 25, 2012

Community and colleague comments and an afternoon field trip in memory and celebration to Lynn's favorite swimming hole (and last research site), Puffers Pond

Every scientific idea passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed or claimed to be of only minor importance. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-William Whewell , History of the Induction Sciences (1840)

Dear Earthlings:

Yours truly would like to share a sense of the mutual admiration she developed for Lynn Margulis' work and vice versa. 


Here's Margulis on the back cover of my latest:
"In her clear, intelligent voice, Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio demonstrates that no law of love conservation exists.  The more we love, the safer we are and the more love we receive. . . . Gaia and the New Politics of Love [is]  . . . an antidote to the lovelessness that makes us miserable on this liveliest of planets."


And here's yours truly about Margulis in between the pages:
"One can imagine . . . [Margulis] spending untiring hours behind a microscope, enchanted by the multifarious forms microbial life can take.  She has not lost the pleasure of contemplating life [and believes that]   . . . observing the behavior of microbes provides understanding on the origins of life itself" (Gaia, 68).

Education is the heart of democracy.  And that includes education to love. It comes in many forms.  Including learning about Lynn Margulis and her challenge to run-of-the-mill-science at this symposium. 

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 and the New Politics of Love and many other books
Professor of Humanities

University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

   

Follow us in the social media

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

Website: www.serenagaia.com 

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