Cyanobacteria, triptych, 2025 © Gabriela Torres Ruiz, 2025

Rethink Bacteria (work in progress)

Microbes are the most important, diverse and ancient life forms on our planet. The science of these organisms, microbiology, is the science of the most significant living entities and their influence on all the rest of life. If the world we inhabit is indeed a microbial world, then many of the standard philosophical ways in which we conceive biological phenomena and how they are investigated will have to be rethought.

Maureen O'Malley

Philosophy of Microbiology