The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.
When you meet kin, there is an energy and sparkle between your bodies. It must be chemical somehow - DNA and genes.
Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body...are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically.
Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.
It is from the progeny of this parent cell that we all take our looks; we still share genes around, and the resemblance of the enzymes of grasses to those of whales is in fact a family resemblance.
We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.
We humans have a tendency to see ourselves as completely different from other animals, and the way in which large segments of the public continue to reject the theory of evolution is just one symptom of that malaise.
You don't see the plug connected to the environment, so it looks like we're free, wandering around. Take the oxygen away, we all die immediately. Take plant life away, we die. And without the sun, all the plants die. So we are connected.
We are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That's kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It's not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.
Clearly, we are a species that is well connected to other species. Whether or not we evolve from them, we are certainly very closely related to them. A series of mutations could change us into all kinds of intermediate species. Whether or not those intermediate species are provably in the past, they could easily be in our future.
Despite some remaining puzzles, there's no reason to doubt that Darwin had this point right, that all creatures on earth are biological relatives
I certainly don't think it's inevitable that we don't love children who don't carry our own DNA. If that were true we wouldn't have millions of successful adoptions to consider. I do think that it's harder to love a child when you come into that child's life after the unrequited passion of infancy and early childhood has passed.
I know the theological answers, but do my blood and my pulse?
And then, of course, there's a couple that claim to be, but I haven't done any DNA tests or anything.
A hydrogen atom in a cell at the end of my nose was once part of an elephant's trunk. A carbon atom in my cardiac muscle was once in the tail of a dinosaur.
It's about the connecting force from form to form. It's the toe bone connecting to the shoulder bone. It's the bacterial kick of life force, something growing out of nothing, forming itself out of something else. Form never stops. And form is always environmental.
Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a new animal, but it is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent; since a part of the embryon-animal is, or was, a part of the parent; and therefore in strict language it cannot be said to be entirely new at the time of its production; and therefore it may retain some of the habits of the parent-system. (1794)
Motherhood goes back in history to a time when a father had no way of knowing his children. Fatherhood only became known when class patriarchal society had established itself and imposed monogamous marriage on women. Motherhood is like sun and rain and plants, a quality and product of nature which does not require laws or systems in order to exist.
Sex is our deepest form of consciousness. It is utterly non-ideal, non-mental. It is pure blood-consciousness.... It is the consciousness of the night, when the soul is almost asleep.
And, you know, the fact is, if you believe in evolution, we all have a common ancestor, and we all have a common ancestry with the plant in the lobby. This is what evolution tells us. And, it's true. It's kind of unbelievable.
Your cells are as depressed as you are, and your cells are as happy and frisky as you are.
A family spirit is not always synonymous with family life. Bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh makes for brothers, sisters and relatives, who may be as distant as strangers in a foreign land.
Being a grandparent doesn't interest me whatsoever. Babies are all right if they're your own, but I'm not interested in other people's. It's something you tolerate because they are yours.
All life is related. And it enables us to construct with confidence the complex tree that represents the history of life
