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LifeWeb:Book - EARTHDANCE: Living Systems in Evolution
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EARTHDANCE:

Living Systems in Evolution

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Elisabet Sahtouris




Copyright 1999 by Elisabet Sahtouris
------------------------------
*To my planet and its people*
------------------------------

Dancing is surely the most basic and relevant of all forms of expression.
Nothing else can so effectively give outward form to an inner experience.
Poetry and music exist in time. Painting and architecture are a part of
space But only the dance lives at once in both space and time In it the
creator and the thing created, the artist and the expression, are one. Each
participant is completely in the other. There could be no better metaphor
for an understanding of the...cosmos.

We begin to realize that our universe is in a sense brought into being by
the participation of those involved in it. It is a dance, for participation
is its organizing principle. This is the important new concept of quantum
mechanics. It takes the place in our understanding of the old notion of
observation, of watching without getting involved. Quantum theory says it
can't be done. That spectators can sit in their rigid row as long as they
like, but there will never be a performance unless at least one of them
takes part And conversely, that it needs only one participant, because that
one is the essence of all people and the quintessence of the cosmos.

-Lyall Watson, Gifts of Unknown Things



Thank you.

Special thanks to Jim Lovelock and Lynn Margulis for the original
inspiration to write this book and for their encouragement over the years,
also to Teddy Goldsmith for creating the Gaia Seminars in Cornwall. My deep
appreciation to Dave Ratcliffe and Rebecca Lord for putting the book on the
Web while it was out of print, and to Bruce Bigenho for his tireless
efforts with the second edition. My gratitude extends as well to Nancy
Larson for the original cover photo and to my son, Philip LaVere, for the
cover design. Lastly, but certainly not least, I thank with a smile my
sometimes enigmatic but wonderful editor at Praeger, Jeremy Geelan, for his
great enthusiasm and effort to get EarthDance out there!








Contents


   FOREWORD BY JAMES E. LOVELOCK
   
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   A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
   
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   1. A TWICE-TOLD TALE
   
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   2. COSMIC BEGINNINGS
   
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   3. THE YOUNG EARTH
   
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   4. PROBLEMS FOR EARTHLIFE
   
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   5. THE DANCE OF LIFE
   
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   6. A GREAT LEAP
   
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   7. EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION
   
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   8. FROM PROTISTS TO POLYPS
   
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   9. FROM POLYPS TO POSSUMS
   
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   10. FROM POSSUMS TO PEOPLE
   
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   11. THE BIG BRAIN EXPERIMENT
   
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   12. WHAT THE PLAY IS ALL ABOUT
   
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   13. WORLDVIEWS FROM THE PLEISTOCENE TO PLATO
   
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   14. WORLDVIEWS FROM PLATO TO THE PRESENT
   
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   15. LESS THAN PERFECT, MORE THAN MACHINE
   
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   16. THE BODY OF HUMANITY
   
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   17. A MATTER OF MATURATION
   
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   18. ECOLOGICAL ETHICS
   
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   19. THE INDIGENOUS WAY
   
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   20. SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY
   
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   21. COSMIC CONTINUATION
   
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   BIBLIOGRAPHY
   
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* About the Author *



Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D. is an American/Greek evolution biologist,
futurist and author/lecturer who has lived in the USA, Greece and Peru. She
has taught at MIT and the University of Massachusetts, contributed to the
NOVA/HORIZON series at WGBH-TV Boston and has been a UN consultant on
indigenous people. Her current work focuses on bringing principles of
living systems into the corporate world. She has two children and three
grandchildren. Her recent books are *Biology Revisioned*, with Willis
Harman, North Atlantic Publishers 1998, and *A Walk Through Time: From
Stardust to Us*, Wiley 1998.

She is available for consulting and speaking engagements.

E-mail: elisabet [at] sahtouris [dot] com

Website: http://www.ratical.org/LifeWeb/
<http://web.archive.org/web/20060106001555/http://www.ratical.org/LifeWeb/>