“I am a member of a fragile species, still new to the earth, the youngest creatures of any scale, here only a few moments as evolutionary time is measured, a juvenile species, a child of a species. We are only tentatively set in place, error prone, at risk of fumbling, in real danger at the moment of leaving behind only a thin layer of of our fossils, radioactive at that.”

American physician, biologist and essayist

Lewis Thomas was an American physician, biologist, essayist, poet, and administrator. He lived from 1913 to 1993, and is best known for his thoughtful writing on science, medicine, and language. He was a longtime contributor to The New England Journal of Medicine, and his essays were gathered in several books. For The Lives of a Cell, he received the National Book Award in Arts and Letters and The Sciences. His work often moves between scientific observation and a broader reflection on how people understand the natural world.