Lewis Thomas

Lewis Thomas

Infobox Scientist
name = PAGENAME
box_width =


image_size =150px
caption = PAGENAME
birth_date = November 25 1913
birth_place = Flushing, New York
death_date = December 3, 1993
death_place =
residence = |citizenship =
nationality =
ethnicity =
field =
work_institutions =
alma_mater = New York University School of Medicine
doctoral_advisor =
doctoral_students =
known_for =
author_abbrev_bot =|author_abbrev_zoo =
influences =
influenced =
prizes =
religion =
footnotes =

Lewis Thomas (November 25 1913–December 3, 1993) was a physician, poet, etymologist, essayist, administrator, educator, policy advisor, and researcher.

Thomas was born in Flushing, New York and attended Princeton University and Harvard Medical School. He became Dean of Yale Medical School and New York University School of Medicine, and President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute.

He was invited to write regular essays in the "New England Journal of Medicine", and won a National Book Award for the 1974 collection of those essays, "". He also won a Christopher Award for this book. Two other collections of essays (from NEJM and other sources) are "The Medusa and the Snail" and "Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony". His autobiography, "The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine Watcher" is a record of a century of medicine and the changes which occurred in it. He also published a book on etymology entitled "Et Cetera, Et Cetera", poems, and numerous scientific papers.

Many of his essays discuss relationships among ideas or concepts using etymology as a starting point. Others concern the cultural implications of scientific discoveries and the growing awareness of ecology. In his essay on Mahler's Ninth Symphony, Thomas addresses the anxieties produced by the development of nuclear weapons. Thomas is often quoted, given his notably eclectic interests and superlative prose style.

The Lewis Thomas Prize is awarded annually by The Rockefeller University to a scientist for artistic achievement.

Parallels to Gaia Theory

In the book "The Lives of a Cell", Thomas makes an observation very similar to James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis::"I have been trying to think of the earth as a kind of organism, but it is no go. I cannot think of it this way. It is too big, too complex, with too many working parts lacking visible connections. The other night, driving through a hilly, wooded part of southern New England, I wondered about this. If not like an organism, what is it like, what is it most like? Then, satisfactorily for that moment, it came to me: it is most like a single cell."

On Probability and Possibility

In 1974, Thomas wrote in "The Lives of a Cell" that the function of humans is communication.

" "We pass thoughts around, from mind to mind, so compulsively and with such speed that the brains of mankind often appear, functionally, to be undergoing fusion."
Thirty-some years later, with the developments in communication such as the Internet and all its derivatives (newsgroups, email, websites), the import of these words takes on a whole new meaning.

"Or perhaps we are only at the beginning of learning to use the system, with almost all our evolution as a species still ahead of us. Maybe the thoughts we generate today and flick around from mind to mind...are the primitive precursors of more complicated, polymerized structures that will come later, analogous to the prokaryotic cells that drifted through shallow pools in the early days of biological evolution. Later, when the time is right, there may be fusion and symbiosis among the bits, and then we will see eukaryotic thought, metazoans of thought, huge interliving coral shoals of thought."

"The mechanism is there" [n.b.: in the human brain] , "and there is no doubt that it is already capable of functioning..."

"We are simultaneously participants and bystanders, which is a puzzling role to play. As participants, we have no choice in the matter; this is what we do as a species."

Books

*"The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher", 1974, Viking Press: ISBN 0-670-43442-6, Penguin Books, 1995 reprint: ISBN 0-14-004743-3
*"The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher", 1979, Viking Press: ISBN 0-670-46568-2, Penguin Books, 1995 reprint: ISBN 0-14-024319-4
*"Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony", 1983, Viking Press: ISBN 0-670-70390-7, Penguin Books, 1995 reprint: ISBN 0-14-024328-3
*"The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine-Watcher", 1983, Viking: ISBN 0-670-79533-X, Penguin Books, 1995 reprint: ISBN 0-14-024327-5
*"The Fragile Species", 1992, Scribner, ISBN 0-684-19420-1, Simon & Schuster, 1996 paperback: ISBN 0-684-84302-1
*"Et Cetera, Et Cetera: Notes of a Word-Watcher", 1990. Little Brown & Co ISBN 0-316-84099-8, Welcome Rain, 2000 ISBN 1-56649-166-5


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Lewis Thomas — (25 novemre 1913 3 décembre 1993) est un scientifique, poète, essayiste, administrateur, éducateur et chercheur américain. Thomas est né à Flushing dans l état de New York puis il suit des études à l université de Princeton puis à l école de… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Lewis Thomas Drummond — (May 28 1813 ndash; November 24 1882) was a Quebec lawyer, judge and political figure.He was born in Coleraine in Ireland in 1813. His father, an attorney, died while he was young and he came to Lower Canada with his mother in 1825. He studied at …   Wikipedia

  • Lewis Thomas Prize — The Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, named for its first recipient, Lewis Thomas, is an annual literary prize awarded by Rockefeller University [The Lewis Thomas Award for Communications has also been awarded by the American College… …   Wikipedia

  • John Lewis Thomas, Jr. — John Lewis Thomas, Jr. (May 20, 1835 ndash; October 15, 1893) was an American politician.Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Thomas studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1856, commencing practice soon afterwards in Cumberland, Maryland. He also… …   Wikipedia

  • Thomas Lewis — has been the name of several notable men:*Thomas Lewis (American football) (b. 1972), American football wide receiver *Thomas Lewis (peace activist), artist and peace activist *Thomas Lewis (unionist), (1866–1939), president of the United Mine… …   Wikipedia

  • Lewis and Clark Expedition — Lewis and Clark on the Lower Columbia von Charles Marion Russell Die Lewis und Clark Expedition (14. Mai 1804 bis 23. September 1806) war die erste amerikanische Überlandexpedition zur Pazifikküste und zurück. Der Louisiana Landkauf im Jahre 1803 …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Lewis und Clark — Lewis and Clark on the Lower Columbia von Charles Marion Russell Die Lewis und Clark Expedition (14. Mai 1804 bis 23. September 1806) war die erste amerikanische Überlandexpedition zur Pazifikküste und zurück. Der Louisiana Landkauf im Jahre 1803 …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Lewis-und-Clark-Expedition — Lewis and Clark on the Lower Columbia von Charles Marion Russell Die Lewis und Clark Expedition (14. Mai 1804 bis 23. September 1806) war die erste amerikanische Überlandexpedition zur Pazifikküste und zurück. Der Louisiana Landkauf im Jahre 1803 …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Lewis Casson — Nacimiento 26 de octubre de 1875 Birkenhead, Cheshire, Inglaterra, Reino Unido Fallecimiento 16 de mayo de 1969 Londres, Inglaterra Pareja Sybil Thorndike Sir Lewis Thomas Casson ( …   Wikipedia Español

  • Lewis Gobern —  Lewis Gobern Spielerinformationen Voller Name Lewis Thomas Gobern Geburtstag 28. Januar 1985 Geburtsort Birmingham, England Position Flügelspiele …   Deutsch Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”