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The Hologenome Concept: Human, Animal and Plant Microbiota pp 9–22Cite as

Origin of Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes

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Abstract

The fundamental desire to understand the origin of life is demonstrated by the fact that essentially all human cultures contain a story of how life began. From the tribes of ancient times to the mythologies of more modern cultures, there are countless stories of the origin of life. Some are based in pagan beliefs, while others are based on creation resulting from a holy deity. This collection of myths, legends, and tribal knowledge handed down over generations is the collective expression of how man has attempted to explain his world and his place in it. What is common to all these cultures is that their specific story of how life began is accepted without question. The role of the adults is simply to teach the story to the children.

The past the finite greatness of the past/For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past.

—Walt Whitman

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Eugene Rosenberg

  2. Givat Shmuel, Israel

    Ilana Zilber-Rosenberg

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  1. Eugene Rosenberg
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  2. Ilana Zilber-Rosenberg
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Correspondence to Eugene Rosenberg .

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Rosenberg, E., Zilber-Rosenberg, I. (2013). Origin of Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes. In: The Hologenome Concept: Human, Animal and Plant Microbiota. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04241-1_2

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