[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Margulis_L.jpg” caption=”Lynn Margulis”]Cosmonauts and astronauts are awed by the “blue marble”, the face of the living Earth from space. The Gaia hypothesis, a product of the lively imagination of British atmospheric chemist James E. Lovelock and the international space program, states that the atmospheric temperature and reactive chemical composition of the biota, that is the estimated 30 million species of flora, fauna and microbiota depend ultimately on solar and geothermal energy.

Lynn Margulis, distinguished university professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts, is visiting McMaster on Thursday, March 23 as a guest of the Origins Institute to present a free public lecture on this topic entitled, “Gaia's Cells: towards a science of environmental evolution”.

Margulis lecture abstract describes the “Gaia hypothesis”, generative of new ideas that lead to experiments, observations and calculations, as unequivocally science. Since we are all dependent on solar energy, she suggests, sun worship or homage to volcanic gods are more justifiable than worship of the vengeful anthropocentric Judeo-Christian God.

We people, states Margulis, newly arrived Homo sapiens, are dispensable components of our Gaian Earth. During the last 3500 million years the Earth's atmosphere and surface have deviated from those of Mars and Venus, its neighboring planets. The excursion of the Earth away from a solar system inner-planetary-norm is best understood as the planetary response to the evolution of life. Gaia science, made palatable to academics by calling it Earth System Science is an exciting new integrative research initiative of Astrobiology.

Her publications, spanning a wide range of scientific topics, include original contributions to cell biology and microbial evolution. She is best known for her theory of symbiogenesis, which challenges a central tenet of neodarwinism. She argues that inherited variation, significant in evolution, does not come mainly from random mutations. Rather new tissues, organs, and even new species evolve primarily through the long-lasting intimacy of strangers. The fusion of genomes in symbioses followed by natural selection, she suggests, leads to increasingly complex levels of individuality. Margulis is also acknowledged for her contribution to James E. Lovelock's Gaia concept. Gaia theory posits that the Earth's surface interactions among living beings sediment, air, and water have created a vast self-regulating system.

Margulis was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983, received from William J. Clinton the Presidential Medal of Science in 1999. The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., announced in 1998 that it will permanently archive her papers. She was a faculty mentor at Boston University for 22 years. She participates in hands-on teaching activities at levels from middle to graduate school, is the author of many articles and books. The most recent include Symbiotic Planet: A new look at evolution (1998) and Acquiring Genomes: A theory of the origins of species (2002), co-written with Dorion Sagan.

Lecture details:

Thursday, March 23, 2006 at 8 p.m.

Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning & Discovery, Room 1305

The Origins Institute is a newly created institute at McMaster University. Its scientific focus is to create and foster interdisciplinary research on origins themes across a broad range of fundamental science. IT also sponsors a public outreach and lectures program, as well as an undergraduate Origins specialization.