Lewis Thomas (November 25, 1913 – December 5, 1993) was an influential American physician, poet, and essayist. Born in Flushing, New York, he dedicated much of his career to medicine and scientific research, holding important positions at institutions such as New York University School of Medicine and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Thomas is most celebrated for his essay collections, "The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher" (1974), which earned him the National Book Award, and "The Medusa and the Snail" (1979). His writings explored the interconnection between science, biology, and the human condition, often with a lyrical and reflective language that captivated both specialists and the general public. He addressed themes such as the nature of cells, evolution, ecology, and the meaning of life from a humanist perspective and with a sense of wonder for the natural world. Thomas was also a talented poet. He passed away in 1993, leaving a legacy as one of the great scientific communicators and thinkers of the 20th century, whose work continues to inspire a deeper appreciation for science and life.
Poems List
Altruism has always been one of biology’s deep mysteries. Why should any animal, off on its own, specified and labeled by all sorts of signals as its individual self, choose to give up its life in aid of someone else?
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It is a distortion, with something profoundly disloyal about it, to picture the human being as a teetering, fallible contraption, always needing, watching and patching, always on the verge of flapping to pieces.
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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.
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Our behavior toward each other is the strangest, most unpredictable, and almost entirely unaccountable of all the phenomena with which we are obliged to live.
Cats are a standing rebuke to behavioral scientists wanting to know how the minds of animals work. The mind of a cat is an unscrutable mystery.
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Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere possibility of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.
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We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other.
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