Lewis Thomas,The Lives of a Cell

Lewis Thomas was, among a long list of things, a researcher who attended both Princeton University and Harvard Medical School. During this essay, The Lives of a Cell, Thomas describes the intricate inner workings of a single cell and how many separate organisms are involved in making just one cell work. Thomas says that men often think of their existence as greater than they really are, so in an effort to explain to the readers how complicated and interdependent the cell is, he draws a parallel to the Earth and says that the Earth and a cell are very similar. Throughout this essay, to back up his point, he personifies and compares the systems inside a cell. He starts off by comparing chloroplasts, the system that provides plants with energy, to enterprises, meaning to say that chloroplasts do are very elaborate and full of many different possesses. He also points out that chloroplasts are their own organisms that came into the cell and that they speak their own language, Thomas means to say that like the inhabitants of Earth have their own languages that differentiates them from one another, the chloroplasts are also different and specialized from the cells. Thomas’ comparison of the cell to Earth is very well backed and an interesting viewpoint that makes this enormous concept easy to digest for the common person.

A Giant Molecule
http://magazine.jhsph.edu/2007/Spring/features/dna/_images/cell_to_earth.jpg