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.
Lewis ThomasRead
The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life on Earth shares a common origin, which is more surprising than its variety.
This quote by Lewis Thomas emphasizes the idea that while the variety of life on Earth is impressive, the fact that all living organisms share a common ancestral origin from a single cell is even more remarkable. The mention of a 'bolt of lightning' illustrates the dramatic and mysterious nature of the conditions that led to the beginnings of life, suggesting that our biological connections run deep, despite the vast diversity we see today.
Themes
LifeEarthOriginDiversityScience
In practice
Example use cases
In a science class discussion about the origins of life, this quote can inspire students to think about our shared beginnings.
More from Lewis Thomas
All quotes →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.
Lewis ThomasRead
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.
Lewis ThomasRead
Science is founded on uncertainty. Each time we learn something new and surprising, the astonishment comes with the realization that we were wrong before.
Lewis ThomasRead
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.
Lewis ThomasRead
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.
Lewis ThomasRead
Similar quotes
Our science fails to recognize those special properties of life that make it fundamental to material reality. This view of the world - biocentrism - revolves around the way a subjective experience, which we call consciousness, relates to a physical process. It is a vast mystery and one that I have pursued my entire life.
Robert LanzaRead
For me, science is already fantastical enough. Unlocking the secrets of nature with fundamental physics or cosmology or astrobiology leads you into a wonderland compared with which beliefs in things like alien abductions pale into insignificance.
Paul DaviesRead
Mars once was wet and fertile. It's now bone dry. Something bad happened on Mars. I want to know what happened on Mars so that we may prevent it from happening here on Earth.
Neil Degrasse TysonRead
Regardless of your sex, if you have elevated testosterone levels in your blood, you're more likely to think a face with a neutral expression is instead looking threatening.
Robert SapolskyRead
If you go down through the horizon of a black hole, at the center you don't find a tunnel that leads you to some other place in the universe.
Kip ThorneRead
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.
Bertrand RussellRead