Gaia and Philosophy

About Dorion SaganLynn Margulis

Lynn Margulis (19382011) was an interdisciplinary evolutionary biologist author and educator. She was the primary intellectual force in the 20th and early 21st century responsible for the acceptance of the role of symbiogenesis (of archaea and bacteria) played in the evolution of the eukaryotic cells (cells with nuclei) that became plants animals and fungi. She also by underscoring the roles of gas-exchanging bacteria helped turn James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis that the reactive gases of Earth's atmosphere were physiologically regulated by life away from thermodynamic equilibrium into a full on theory. Her books often written in collaboration with her son Dorion Sagan include Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors (1987) Mystery Dance: On the Evolution of Human Sexuality (1991) and Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia Symbiosis and Evolution (1997).Writer and ecological philosopher Dorion Sagan is author or coauthor of twenty-five books translated into fifteen languages including Danish Japanese Turkish Catalan and Basque on topics ranging from evolution of the biosphere to the thermodynamics of ecosystems to programmed aging. He was called an unmissable modern master by New Scientist; Nobel laureate chemist Roald Hoffman called his cowritten Into the Cool fascinating and anthropologist Melvin Konner writing in The New York Times said of his-coauthored Microcosmos that this admiring reader of Lewis Thomas Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould has seldom if ever seen such a luminous prose style in a work of this kind. His current interests include poetry and experimental literature. With Carl Sagan and Lynn Margulis his parents he is coauthor of the entries for both Life and Extraterrestrial Life in the Encyclopedia Britannica. His current projects include poetry a story collection and a metabiography on his parents early romance and connected sciences.Anicka Yi (born 1971 in Seoul South Korea) is a conceptual artist whose work lies at the intersection of fragrance cuisine and science. She is known for installations that engage the senses especially the sense of smell and for her collaborations with biologists and chemists. Yi lives and works in New York City.