Quotes from book
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

Lewis Thomas

The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher is collection of 29 essays written by Lewis Thomas for the New England Journal of Medicine between 1971 and 1973. Throughout his essays, Thomas touches on subjects as various as biology, anthropology, medicine, music , etymology, mass communication, and computers. The pieces resonate with the underlying theme of the interconnected nature of Earth and all living things.

“Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"On Probability and Possibility"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)
Context: Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.

“I can think of a few microorganisms, possibly the tubercle bacillus, the syphilis spirochete, the malarial parasite, and a few others, that have a selective advantage in their ability to infect human beings, but there is nothing to be gained, in an evolutionary sense, by the capacity to cause illness or death. Pathogenicity may be something of a disadvantage for most microbes, carrying lethal risks far more frightening to them than to us. The man who catches a meningococcus is in considerably less danger for his life, even without chemotherapy, than meningococci with the bad luck to catch a man.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"Germs"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

“It is when physicians are bogged down by their incomplete technologies, by the innumerable things they are obliged to do in medicine when they lack a clear understanding of disease mechanisms, that the deficiencies of the health-care system are most conspicuous. If I were a policy-maker, interested in saving money for health care over the long haul, I would regard it as an act of high prudence to give high priority to a lot more basic research in biologic science.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"The Technology of Medicine"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

“We hanker to go on, even in the face of plain evidence that long, long lives are not necessarily pleasurable in the kind of society we have arranged thus far. We will be lucky if we can postpone the search for new technologies for a while, until we have discovered some satisfactory things to do with the extra time.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"The Long Habit"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

“Perhaps the safest thing to do at the outset, if technology permits, is to send music. This language may be the best we have for explaining what we are like to others in space, with least ambiguity. I would vote for Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space, over and over again. We would be bragging of course, but it is surely excusable to put the best possible face on at the beginning of such an acquaintance. We can tell the harder truths later.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"Ceti"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

“If we have learned anything at all in this century, it is that all new technologies will be put to use, sooner or later, for better or worse, as it is in our nature to do.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"Autonomy"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

“Cells are required to stick precisely to the point. Any ambiguity, any tendency to wander from the matter at hand, will introduce grave hazards for the cells, and even more for the host in which they live. Minor inaccuracies may cause reactions in which neighboring cells are recognized as foreign, and done in. There is a theory that the process of aging may be due to the cumulative effect of imprecision, a gradual degrading of information. It is not a system that allows for deviating.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"Information"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

“Ants are more like the parts of an animal than entities on their own. They are mobile cells, circulating through a dense connective tissue of other ants in a matrix of twigs. The circuits are so intimately interwoven that the anthill meets all the essential criteria of an organism.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"Antaeus in Manhattan"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

“The need to make music, and to listen to it, is universally expressed by human beings.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"The Music of This Sphere"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)
Context: The need to make music, and to listen to it, is universally expressed by human beings. I cannot imagine, even in our most primitive times, the emergence of talented painters to make cave paintings without there having been, near at hand, equally creative people making song. It is, like speech, a dominant aspect of human biology.

“The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"Computers"<!-- , p. 113 -->
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)
Context: The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get. Most of all, we need to preserve the absolute unpredictability and total improbability of our connected minds. That way we can keep open all the options, as we have in the past.

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