TOW #13- The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas (written text)

“The Lives of a Cell” was written by Lewis Thomas in 1971. Thomas was a physician, and although he just started writing “for fun,” he soon became a successful author as well. Thomas was a prominent medical researcher, and he was the dean of both NYU Medical School and Yale Medical School. He was well-known for his creative and original hypotheses and for his writings. This significant scientific research and important professions provided Thomas with automatic ethos in his writings. “The Lives of a Cell” was published in The New England Journal of Medicine. As a result, this essay was probably published for other people involved in medicine to read. Another clue that this was published for other people involved in medicine is that Thomas references specific terms, such as “mitochondria,” that the general public might not understand, unless they were involved in medicine. Therefore, Thomas’s purpose in writing this essay is to give the people involved in medicine a more uncommon view of the earth, the ecosystem, and the cells, etc. Thomas’s essay seems argumentative, and he is arguing that the earth is not nearly as fragile a place as one might imagine. Instead, it is composed of a multitude of complex parts working together, and humanity is the fragile part. In order to to argue this, Thomas begins by refuting the counterargument, and common belief, that humanity is fragile. Thomas writes, “We are told that the trouble with Modern Man is that he has been trying to detach himself from nature...In this scenario, Man comes on as a stupendous lethal force and the earth is pictured as something delicate...But it is illusion to think that there is anything fragile about the life of the earth...” (Thomas 1-2). By beginning with this common belief and then subsequently refuting it in a logical way with research, the reader is able to more easily be persuaded to believe Thomas’s opinion. After the initial counterargument rebuttal in the beginning of the essay, Thomas goes on to prove his point throughout the essay with specific examples, such as by explaining the complexity of mitochondria within us, before concluding at the end with a full circle, thought-provoking ending that the earth is in fact a living cell. In this way, Thomas draws together the title and his description of the cells, as well as his description of the earth, in order to give a final declaration of the complexity of the earth and the frailness of humanity.