MARGULIS LABORATORY
MARGULIS LABORATORY
Symbiogenetics
Environmental evolution
Origin of the eukaryotic cell
Microbial communities
Gaia Theory and Gaian Science
Evolution geography
Areas of interest
The scientific mission of our laboratory is the pursuit of Darwinian "natural history" enlightened by nearly two centuries of scientific insight: Vernadskyan, Lovelockian and molecular biological. Our "object of study" is evolution, not limited to biology but rather "environmental evolution". We track the changes through time of the surface of the "living Earth from space". We try to reconstruct Earth history from clues taken to be representational. Our science seamlessly involves microbiology, cell biology, systems biology, genetics, ecology, "soft rock"-geology (paleontology, sedimentation and stratigraphy), geography, astronomy, astrobiology, atmospheric sciences, metabolic organic, physiology and biochemistry.
We notice that our friends, colleagues and especially our fellow scientists begin to share our vision. We welcome, in Ludwik Fleck's terms (Genesis and development of a scientific fact, U Chicago Press, 1989), a change in "thought-style" of the scientific "thought-collective" as we, along with Jim Lovelock and James A. Shapiro promote a rigorous contextual science. We reiterate T. Dobzhansky's admonition that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" and expand it: nothing at all makes sense except in the light of its history.
Our Rigorous and Contextual Approach to Environmental Evolution
Protoctistology
Biogeochemistry
Community in evolution
Microbialites
Cosmological cycles
Cosmic influences on Earth
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© 2009 Lynn Margulis/Sciencewriters. All rights reserved.
Bust of Homer (British Museum, London)
Updated 01/27/2012
LIFE IS THE GEOLOGICAL FORCE