[Hac-announce] Evolution Theorist, Obit

[Thomas Platt]

Lynn Margulis, Evolution Theorist, Dies at 73

http://tinyurl.com/c3zhorb

Halina drew my attention to this article this morning.

Excerpts:
"Dr. Margulis, who had the title of distinguished university  
professor of geosciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst,  
since 1988, drew upon earlier, ridiculed ideas when she first  
promulgated her theory, in the late 1960s, that cells with nuclei,  
which are known as eukaryotes and include all the cells in the human  
body, evolved as a result of symbiotic relationships among bacteria.
The hypothesis was a direct challenge to the prevailing neo-Darwinist  
belief that the primary evolutionary mechanism was random mutation.

Rather, Dr. Margulis argued that a more important mechanism was  
symbiosis; that is, evolution is a function of organisms that are  
mutually beneficial growing together to become one and reproducing.  
The theory undermined significant precepts of the study of evolution,  
underscoring the idea that evolution began at the level of micro- 
organisms long before it would be visible at the level of species."

----------------

"A revised version (of her book), “Symbiosis in Cell Evolution,”  
followed in 1981, and though it challenged the presumptions of many  
prominent scientists, it has since become accepted evolutionary  
doctrine."



Examples from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organelle

"Mitochondria and chloroplasts (in plant cells), which have double- 
membranes and their own DNA, are believed to have originated from  
incompletely consumed or invading prokaryotic organisms (the bacteria  
mentioned above), which were adopted as a part of the invaded cell.  
This idea is supported in the Endosymbiotic theory."



In my opinion, Lynn Margulis' contribution might best be regarded as  
a significant enhancement to evolutionary theory. - Tom Platt
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