Lynn Margulis changed our understanding of life. She is without a doubt the most important biologist of the 20th century, and matches Charles Darwin in her impact.
But – she is a woman, and her theory basically overcome the “mechanistic mind” that has dominated a racist, DNA-centric, and neo-Darwinist understanding of biology. Mostly by white males who dominated the funding agencies of that time and had embraced self-interest as driving evolutionary force. This paradigm still dominates biological teaching in schools – while Lynn sees selection as mere “clean-up” but symbiosis as truly innovative force. Yes, scientists have reluctantly integrated Lynn’s new “tree of evolution” into all biology textbooks (which is a network), they have accepted the mitochondrial organel as caused by symbiosis. But this is really just scratching the surface of what her symbiotic theory really means.
Her theory basically does away with the notion of “I”. Now, “we think that’s why we are”. Did you know that 90% of every human’s DNA is not human? And even in this human DNA, most of it is what our symbionts parked for long-term storage? That the “species” of termites is really a super-organism of about 20 independent species that MUST live together? That fungi at times “mate” with plants, or bacteria, and integrate their active DNA into their cells? That DNA is not driving evolution but cells actively manipulate DNA – throughout their lives?
Her theory changes everything. Who we are, how we relate to the living world. She never received major funding because the white old guys that dominated the funding bodies just hated the implications of her theory. Gradualism exists but it’s mere fine tuning. Innovation comes from transformative symbiosis, recombination of functioning wholes. All computer developers know that – why not accept it as a principle of life?
MUST watch.
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