What do you think?
Rate this book
What Is Life?
Half a century ago, before the discovery of DNA, the Austrian physicist and philosopher Erwin Schrödinger inspired a generation of scientists by rephrasing the fascinating philosophical What is life? Using their expansive understanding of recent science to wonderful effect, acclaimed authors Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan revisit this timeless question in a fast-moving, wide-ranging narrative that combines rigorous science with philosophy, history, and poetry. The authors move deftly across a dazzling array of topics―from the dynamics of the bacterial realm, to the connection between sex and death, to theories of spirit and matter. They delve into the origins of life, offering the startling suggestion that life―not just human life―is free to act and has played an unexpectedly large part in its own evolution. Transcending the various formal concepts of life, this captivating book offers a unique overview of life’s history, essences, and future.
Supplementing the text are stunning illustrations that range from the smallest known organism (Mycoplasma bacteria) to the largest (the biosphere itself). Creatures both strange and familiar enhance the pages of What Is Life? Their existence prompts readers to reconsider preconceptions not only about life but also about their own part in it.
Supplementing the text are stunning illustrations that range from the smallest known organism (Mycoplasma bacteria) to the largest (the biosphere itself). Creatures both strange and familiar enhance the pages of What Is Life? Their existence prompts readers to reconsider preconceptions not only about life but also about their own part in it.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
34 people are currently reading
1651 people want to read
About the author
Lynn Margulis
84 books207 followersLynn Margulis (1938-2011) was a Professor of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 20, 2011
In this book, Margulis/Sagan make a forceful argument for a distinct biologically-based worldview. Life draws from the sun and non-living matter. Life transforms and uses energy and matter for life-sustaining purposes. The animal and plant kingdoms draw from and consist of the bacteria (non-nucleated cells) and protoctists (simple nucleated cells) that represent the first two (in time)life kingdoms (fungi is the third kingdom). The authors are champions of the two "lowest kingdoms" because of the central role they have performed in our development and because most of academic and popular biology neglects this part of life's history.
Live involves living interactions with other life, with the environment and with the biosphere. 'Life' is better understood as a verb, not as a noun, the authors write, and they differ from what they see as a neo-Newtonian view in contemporary evolutionary theory where organic beings are seen as "things" acted upon by "forces." In the most interesting part of this book, Margulis/Sagan discuss a contemporary of Darwin, Samuel Butler, who criticized Darwin for being overly deterministic (evolution by natural selection, but neglecting life's active, cooperative-seeking impulses). The authors discuss Butler's perspective at length, emphasizing that life is very much about direction and goal setting. "All life is teleological," they write. Life "strives." All beings, including bacteria, "make choices" about how they interact with the environment, and choices involve "discrimination, memory, learning and instinct." Of those who separate humanity from the rest of life because of mind, Margulis/Sagan pull us back to our roots. "Thinking " is like "excreting and ingesting." It is "an emergent property of cell hunger, movement, growth, association, programmed death, and satisfaction."
As in the authors' other works,('Acquiring Genomes' (2001) and 'What is Sex' (1997)), this book's narrative is uneven. While much of it soars with biological vision, much of it also gets bogged down in hard-to-understand technical language that, unfortunately, involves key concepts. We know that bacteria are immortal because they trade (via division) genes with each other horizontally whereas in other kingdoms genes move vertically from one generation to the next through sex and reproduction. The description of this key transition in life's evolution is difficult to follow. We also learn that death must be part of sexual reproduction, but here too the description is difficult to follow. At times, one comes frustratingly close to understanding what is involved in the life-sex-death connection, but without being able to move it across the finish line.
Life's continuity through change is a key theme for the authors. While it is the capacity for change that allows life's identity to continue through time, we don't know from this book what essence underlies life that allows this continuity to continue while changing. While the authors concede that answers about life's essence remain tentative, it almost appears that life's survival purpose is the accidental but emergent product of non-life chemicals coming together in such a way that genes and molecules self-replicate (bacteria) and then (in animals) reproduce sexually. The authors, however, seem to want to move the purpose question in a different direction by tying it to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. They argue that life's purpose is to use the sun's energy and dissipate its heat and, thereby, further promote the cosmic movement toward entropy. This is the least convincing part of their argument. It would seem that solar energy would dissipate regardless of life's presence or, if life accelerates this cosmic processing, it could be an accidental by-product of life's survival imperative that developed for other reasons. Regardless of either of these scenarios, in the end, the movement toward entropy would seem to continue despite the momentary cosmic presence of life.
Live involves living interactions with other life, with the environment and with the biosphere. 'Life' is better understood as a verb, not as a noun, the authors write, and they differ from what they see as a neo-Newtonian view in contemporary evolutionary theory where organic beings are seen as "things" acted upon by "forces." In the most interesting part of this book, Margulis/Sagan discuss a contemporary of Darwin, Samuel Butler, who criticized Darwin for being overly deterministic (evolution by natural selection, but neglecting life's active, cooperative-seeking impulses). The authors discuss Butler's perspective at length, emphasizing that life is very much about direction and goal setting. "All life is teleological," they write. Life "strives." All beings, including bacteria, "make choices" about how they interact with the environment, and choices involve "discrimination, memory, learning and instinct." Of those who separate humanity from the rest of life because of mind, Margulis/Sagan pull us back to our roots. "Thinking " is like "excreting and ingesting." It is "an emergent property of cell hunger, movement, growth, association, programmed death, and satisfaction."
As in the authors' other works,('Acquiring Genomes' (2001) and 'What is Sex' (1997)), this book's narrative is uneven. While much of it soars with biological vision, much of it also gets bogged down in hard-to-understand technical language that, unfortunately, involves key concepts. We know that bacteria are immortal because they trade (via division) genes with each other horizontally whereas in other kingdoms genes move vertically from one generation to the next through sex and reproduction. The description of this key transition in life's evolution is difficult to follow. We also learn that death must be part of sexual reproduction, but here too the description is difficult to follow. At times, one comes frustratingly close to understanding what is involved in the life-sex-death connection, but without being able to move it across the finish line.
Life's continuity through change is a key theme for the authors. While it is the capacity for change that allows life's identity to continue through time, we don't know from this book what essence underlies life that allows this continuity to continue while changing. While the authors concede that answers about life's essence remain tentative, it almost appears that life's survival purpose is the accidental but emergent product of non-life chemicals coming together in such a way that genes and molecules self-replicate (bacteria) and then (in animals) reproduce sexually. The authors, however, seem to want to move the purpose question in a different direction by tying it to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. They argue that life's purpose is to use the sun's energy and dissipate its heat and, thereby, further promote the cosmic movement toward entropy. This is the least convincing part of their argument. It would seem that solar energy would dissipate regardless of life's presence or, if life accelerates this cosmic processing, it could be an accidental by-product of life's survival imperative that developed for other reasons. Regardless of either of these scenarios, in the end, the movement toward entropy would seem to continue despite the momentary cosmic presence of life.
February 8, 2016
«What is Life?» is probably what should be the central question of biology. After all, the fancy term just means 'the study of life'. But biologists are having a notoriously hard time defining it. For example the jury is still out (well, at least in some camps) on whether to classify viruses as alive or not.
Here Lynn Margulis (yes, she of endosymbiont theory-fame) takes us through all the different ways one can look at the question of «What is Life?». If you have some deeper training in biology it's probably nothing new for you, but it's well written and lots of fun. It also features nice pictures and interesting philosophical angles.
Recommended: For those curious about biology in a very large and abstract sense.
Here Lynn Margulis (yes, she of endosymbiont theory-fame) takes us through all the different ways one can look at the question of «What is Life?». If you have some deeper training in biology it's probably nothing new for you, but it's well written and lots of fun. It also features nice pictures and interesting philosophical angles.
Recommended: For those curious about biology in a very large and abstract sense.
June 29, 2022
Me ha encantado. Margulis y Sagan escriben maravillosamente bien. Es un libro precioso que navega de manera fantástica entre la biología y filosofía afrontando la pregunta de qué es la vida. Maravilloso, no sólo por el contenido sino por la forma en la que es expresado. Narrado con rigurosidad y claridad, hace que te adentres en las preguntas y cuestiones que expone.
Sin duda maravilloso.
Sin duda maravilloso.
November 20, 2009
Pretty cool book with many interesting facts and suppositions about life. The main idea seems to be that the biosphere, viewed in its totality, is actually a single organism. What makes it such a compelling argument is the wealth of examples and descriptions she brings to bear of simpler organisms evolving to produce more complex organized life forms throughout evolutionary history. She argues that by extension, or perhaps induction, it is reasonable to arrive at, with the complex interconnectedness of untold varieties of organism demonstrated by modern ecology, the seemingly inescapable conclusion that the planet itself is an organism whose nature as an uber-individual is beginning to take a definite shape. It is a grand vision but the book does get a little boring at times as the main idea is continually pounded out to the reader over and over and over. Also, one of the two authors of this book really tests my patience by waxing poetic at times in such a manner as to either just plain confuse or to make me wish I had a paper bag close at hand. It just isn't right. All in all though, the book does manage to pop up with something interesting and even mind altering at just the right frequency that I don't give up altogether. I might even finish it... a rare occurrence for me these days.
August 18, 2024
En alguns moments se m'ha fet una mica repetitiu, però, tot i això, em sembla que aquest llibre és una meravella per la quantitat d'informació que recull i les preguntes que et planteja així com per la forma en el qual està escrit.
March 22, 2025
A valiant and thought-provoking readdressing of the question posed by Schrödinger, 50 years prior to this work’s release. Whilst not reaching the heroic heights of the Austrian’s attempt at asking the big question, this is still a brilliant piece of science writing and has in its favour all of the knowledge of genetics and the central dogma which appeared in the intervening half-century that separates the two books.
One thing that did surprise me-given that Lynn Margulis is the mother of endosymbiosis, and that this book was written a full twenty years after Woese and Fox revised our model for the domains of life-was the mysterious lack of distinction between archaea and bacteria. Her theories have since led to a blossoming of archaeal science and theories of eukaryogenesis, with great emphasis placed on the disparity which exists between these two domains of prokaryotic life. Perhaps she desired to keep it simple? But the quite extensive chapters on metazoa, fungi and plants lead me to believe otherwise. Strange.
Whilst I am unsure of the degree to which each of the two authors contributed to the final form that the book took, Dorion Sagan (son of the coauthor and Carl Sagan) evidently inherited the inquisitive creativity of his mother and skill for science communication from his father (though both parents clearly had both in spades). Four stars.
One thing that did surprise me-given that Lynn Margulis is the mother of endosymbiosis, and that this book was written a full twenty years after Woese and Fox revised our model for the domains of life-was the mysterious lack of distinction between archaea and bacteria. Her theories have since led to a blossoming of archaeal science and theories of eukaryogenesis, with great emphasis placed on the disparity which exists between these two domains of prokaryotic life. Perhaps she desired to keep it simple? But the quite extensive chapters on metazoa, fungi and plants lead me to believe otherwise. Strange.
Whilst I am unsure of the degree to which each of the two authors contributed to the final form that the book took, Dorion Sagan (son of the coauthor and Carl Sagan) evidently inherited the inquisitive creativity of his mother and skill for science communication from his father (though both parents clearly had both in spades). Four stars.
July 22, 2020
This book is more philosophy book than a science one, which is not all that surprising considering its koan-like title. And like a koan, the question isn't really answered categorically but instead is pondered upon in narrative form. The authors utilize the timeline of natural history and evolution as a backdrop for their chronology, describing the crescendo of autopoiesis as it builds upon itself. Not quite a paean to the Gaia theory, they describe the theories of teleology and the emerging philosophy of the 'noosphere'. Answering the question 'What is Life', as the authors seem to put it, is a response to Plato's instruction to 'know thyself'. This way, instead of an insular and egotist analysis of oneself, any insight gleaned into a person's individuality will be dovetailed with the person's place in the biosphere he or she resides in, as well as all other webs that connect the thing that is called 'life'.
September 24, 2018
It was good.
November 27, 2019
mind blow
October 28, 2020
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Wholeheartedly recommended.
April 19, 2021
I loved this book!
June 12, 2021
I have to agree with why she is called a world-class thinker and writer.
June 14, 2021
Probably the best book on biology I have ever read.
October 26, 2021
Un excelente libraco de ciencias biológicas, que resultó algo difícil de leer pero mereció la pena.
January 3, 2022
A terrific book.
October 29, 2024
Comes from the crown chakra more often than the heart one
July 13, 2023
Un libro maravilloso escrito por la bióloga Lynn Margulis en coautoría con su hijo Dorion Sagan. Qué es la vida es un libro de texto, pero también un manual de entendimiento sobre la dependencia que tenemos los seres humanos del planeta tierra como nuestro oikos (ecodependencia de nuestra casa común, la Tierra). Explica, como caminando por un parque, cómo ha surgido y evolucionado el fenómeno de la vida, y cómo este fenómeno de 4.000.000.000 de años no está en riesgo por el actuar humano, aunque claramente sí lo está en alto riesgo nuestras condiciones de habitabilidad y el de muchas otras especies. Allí también se aprende sobre qué es la biósfera, ese pequeño espacio donde existió, existe y existirá el fenómeno de la vida hasta que el sol nos arrastre con su muerte.
July 31, 2008
A stimulating and thought provoking book that runs a thread of wonder into the small.
Pure vision, on this fascinating topic of life.
She and Dorion have successfully pulled together a new intellectual religious mystery.
Pure vision, on this fascinating topic of life.
She and Dorion have successfully pulled together a new intellectual religious mystery.
October 15, 2008
What is Life? A damn good question, and Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan do a fine job of answering it. Life is complexity, co-operation, and creativity. Behold the beauty of evolution and revel in its glory.
December 7, 2011
Very enlightening. The photos or drawings are a visual feast. More of them would be even better...
July 20, 2012
This book is really good--even and thorough, very smart. A bit new age-y in places for me, but still I felt like I wanted to read it again as soon as I finished it.
April 14, 2014
Much in the way of her late husband, Margulis uses her language with a passion and precision to fill the reader with a deep sense of awe and love for this most wonderful planet.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews