I can say, if I like, that social insects behave like the working parts of an immense central nervous system: the termite colony is an enormous brain on millions of legs; the individual termite is a mobile neurone.
Interpretation
The quote likens a termite colony to a vast nervous system, emphasizing the interconnectedness and collective function of its individual members.
In this quote, Lewis Thomas draws an intriguing parallel between the functioning of social insects, particularly termites, and the human brain's neural network. By describing the colony as an 'enormous brain on millions of legs,' he highlights the intricate organization and cooperation among termites, suggesting that each individual termite acts as a neuron, contributing to a greater collective intelligence, much like how neurons in a brain work together to facilitate thought, action, and coordination within an organism.
In practice
In a lecture about ecosystems, this quote could illustrate the organization of social insects.
I suggest that the introductory courses in science, at all levels from grade school through college, be radically revised. Leave the fundamentals, the so-called basics, aside for a while, and concentrate the attention of all students on the things that are not known.
I maintain, despite the moment's evidence against the claim, that we are born and grow up with a fondness for each other, and we have genes for that. We can be talked out of it, for the genetic message is like a distant music, and some of us are hard-of-hearing. Societies are noisy affairs, drowning out the sound of ourselves and our connection.
Science is founded on uncertainty. Each time we learn something new and surprising, the astonishment comes with the realization that we were wrong before.
It is the very strangeness of nature that makes science engrossing. That ought to be at the center of science teaching. There are more than seven-times-seven types of ambiguity in science, awaiting analysis. The poetry of Wallace Stevens is crystal-clear alongside the genetic code.
In the fields I know best, among the life sciences, it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be capable of changing course - often with a great lurch - every few years.
The earliest sensation at the onset of illness, often preceding the recognition of identifiable symptoms, is apprehension. Something has gone wrong, and a glimpse of mortality shifts somewhere deep in the mind. It is the most ancient of our fears.
I think probably one of the important things that happened to me was growing up in Idaho in the mountains, in the woods, and having a very strong presence of the wilderness around me. That never felt like emptiness. It always felt like presence.
This grove, that was now so peaceful, must then have rung with cries, I thought; and even with the thought I could believe I heard it ringing still.
You either get the point of Africa or you don't. What draws me back year after year is that it's like seeing the world with the lid off.
Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.
How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? ... The end of living and the beginning of survival.
This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore.
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