I had lunch yesterday with a nomadic woman who brought up the subject of Biophilia and the author Edward O. Wilson. In looking into his work, I quickly came across Lynn Margulis who was influenced by Konstantin Mereschkowski's work. This led to (excerpt from Wiki): "Russian botanist Boris Kozo-Polyansky brilliantly outlined the concept of symbiogenesis, the symbiotic origin of cells with nuclei. " which led to
this book, a translation Dr. Margulis was instrumental in getting published.
In reading about Wilson in Wiki, note #6 gives this: a CNN.com article that quotes Wilson as having written, "the organism does not live for itself. Its primary function is not even to reproduce other organisms; it reproduces genes, and it serves as their temporary carrier."
This corroboration of Margulis's work adds to her interesting stick-in-the-spokes of the wheel of Survival of the Fittest (who gets to fuck the most) that networking is a fundamental basis of evolution. (see below)
Furthermore (also from Wiki article),
Margulis' work on symbiosis and her endosymbiotic theory had important predecessors, going back to the mid-19th century – notably Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper, Konstantin Mereschkowski, Boris Kozo-Polyansky (1890-
But her statement that I've felt was more fundamental to life in general was: (in the wiki section on Personal Life): She argued that "Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn't create", and maintained that symbiosis was the major driver of evolutionary change."
A MAN telling You
(There's mention in the article of research by a biology couple who found that birds on an island in the Galapagos went extinct when the species of plant they lived on died off during a drought. They postulated that extinctions occur frequently and evolutionary mutations take much longer. This can transmutate into skepticism around Darwinism.)
Then there's this from this great interview in Discover Magazine....
Don’t spirochetes cause syphilis?
Yes, and Lyme disease. There are many kinds of spirochetes, and if I’m right, some of them are ancestors to the cilia in our cells. Spirochete bacteria are already optimized for sensitivity to motion, light, and chemicals. All eukaryotic cells have an internal transport system. If I’m right, the whole system—called the cytoskeletal system—came from the incorporation of ancestral spirochetes. Mitosis, or cell division, is a kind of internal motility system that came from these free-living, symbiotic, swimming bacteria. Here [she shows a video] we compare isolated swimming sperm tails to free-swimming spirochetes. Is that clear enough?
Yes, and Lyme disease. There are many kinds of spirochetes, and if I’m right, some of them are ancestors to the cilia in our cells. Spirochete bacteria are already optimized for sensitivity to motion, light, and chemicals. All eukaryotic cells have an internal transport system. If I’m right, the whole system—called the cytoskeletal system—came from the incorporation of ancestral spirochetes. Mitosis, or cell division, is a kind of internal motility system that came from these free-living, symbiotic, swimming bacteria. Here [she shows a video] we compare isolated swimming sperm tails to free-swimming spirochetes. Is that clear enough?
And yet these ideas are not generally accepted. Why?
Do you want to believe that your sperm tails come from some spirochetes? Most men, most evolutionary biologists, don’t. When they understand what I’m saying, they don’t like it.
Do you want to believe that your sperm tails come from some spirochetes? Most men, most evolutionary biologists, don’t. When they understand what I’m saying, they don’t like it.
And I read a statistic the other day that said 60% of law school students are female.
Things could get interesting.
I do not understand much of what you write, but i think i am getting some sort of essence about it. An essence maybe similar to one that i just was reading in a book by Robin Wall Kimmerer. A question she asked that i keep pondering. was something like. "Yes we know of very many examples of were we humans have a negative impact on nature, but were do we have a positive impact, are we also not co-creators in this Life. So yesterday walking an old trail made by humans, maintained by wildlife and humans alike. A rim of trees had grown along the path, looking at wasp nests in those trees, wasps seemed to use it as a super highway. Does biophilia refers to such phenomenon, or more to we as humans creating situation were something entirely new in Nature is created... I'll look for that one coming week.Thank you for sharing
ReplyDeleteJozien,
DeleteI got caught up in reading about Dr. Margulis and forgot all about biophilia.
The term biophilia was coined using the opposite of phobia. A "philia" is an affinity for something, in this case nature. The word was meant to describe the human tendency to be positively effected by nature.
This is counter to the christian doctrine that states nature is for human use and, in most cases, to be feared and controlled.
Dr. Margulis looked at the tiniest organisms and, in addition to noting that the cilium on eukaryotic cells were the same material as the tails on sperm cells, found instances of symbiosis among different kinds of cells. This was perceived by the males of her day, who revered Darwin's theory of He Who Has the Biggest Dick Gets to Fuck the Most, as sacrilegious.
The conversation with the nomad was about how people usually feel calmer when they are in quieter environments and how many of us feel even BETTER when we're out in nature....what's left of it, that is.
yes, so we are talking different thing s here. Nevertheless i suppose i could say; i have a bad case of biophilia. Always had it, always knew it.
DeleteHmmm, and would you care to disclose any of the OTHER philias you might have? I recall several I found quite interesting.
Delete