Lynn Margulis: A Life In Science – U Mass Amherst, March 23-25

Dear Earthlings:

a symposium about Lynn Margulis is coming up this spring. Yours truly has a special appreciation for this scientist extraordinaire with a special enchantment for the symbiosis that animates nature with love. She suggests you mark your calendar and stay tuned for the program-in-the-making.

Science is where what appeared absurd yesterday may have the ring of truth tomorrow. Margulis was a scientist true to her voice–not the fashions of the day. If paradigmatic shifts are your province, be part of this opportunity to learn about her legacy. What is love? What is sex? What is symbiosis on planet Earth? Yours truly anticipates these to be some of the questions on the table. She invites you to make this project your gift to the Earth for the Holidays.

Listen to the announcement by those in charge of the Margulis legacy:

Please Save the Dates

Lynn Margulis Symposium—A Life in Science: in Memory and Celebration

Friday March 23 to Sunday March 25, 2012

The University of Massachusetts, in collaboration with the family and friends of Lynn Margulis (1938-2011), cordially invites you to a Symposium, March 23-25, 2012, celebrating her life and work. Although the Symposium is still in its early planning stages, we wanted to alert you and other interested parties you may know in order to provide the lead-time needed to save these dates and arrange for travel to and from Amherst, Massachusetts.

We are very excited about this opportunity to gather in memory of Professor Margulis, and to explore the history, importance, and future of her intellectual accomplishments.

As plans take shape, they will be posted to <www.geo.umass.edu/margulis_symposium.html>.

Preliminary Schedule of Events

Friday March 23, 2012

Welcome and Lynn Margulis Film Festival

Saturday March 24, 2012

Welcome followed by seminars on Gaia, astrobiology, symbiosis, and a tribute dinner with Peter Westbroek, William Irwin Thompson, and a new essay by James Lovelock

Sunday March 25, 2012

Community and colleague comments and an afternoon field trip in memory and celebration to Lynn’s favorite swimming hole (and last research site), Puffers Pond

Every scientific idea passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed or claimed to be of only minor importance. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-William Whewell , History of the Induction Sciences (1840)

Dear Earthlings:

Yours truly would like to share a sense of the mutual admiration she developed for Lynn Margulis’ work and vice versa.

Here’s Margulis on the back cover of my latest:
“In her clear, intelligent voice, Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio demonstrates that no law of love conservation exists. The more we love, the safer we are and the more love we receive. . . . Gaia and the New Politics of Love [is] . . . an antidote to the lovelessness that makes us miserable on this liveliest of planets.”

And here’s yours truly about Margulis in between the pages:
“One can imagine . . . [Margulis] spending untiring hours behind a microscope, enchanted by the multifarious forms microbial life can take. She has not lost the pleasure of contemplating life [and believes that] . . . observing the behavior of microbes provides understanding on the origins of life itself” (Gaia, 68).

Education is the heart of democracy. And that includes education to love. It comes in many forms. Including learning about Lynn Margulis and her challenge to run-of-the-mill-science at this symposium.