Montgomery Fellow Lynn Margulis said Tuesday that college students don't know enough about sex, but the statement is hardly her first provocative theory on the facts of life.
The controversial biologist is widely known for her espousal of the controversial "Gaia hypothesis," which considers the Earth as a series of interlocking ecosystems.
In an interview in the sun-filled living room of the Montgomery House, Margulis said too few people understand the basic processes that sustain life.
Margulis, wearing a gray t-shirt depicting colorful protozoa and bacteria, sat back in her chair and began to explain why so many people are confused about life and sex.
"People are very confused about what they think sex is," she said as she sipped her tea. "They think sex is just for reproduction -- but that is just in humans."
Margulis owns several films portraying animals engaging in non-reproductive sex.
Margulis graduated from the University of Chicago in 1958 and received her doctorate from the University of California Berkeley in 1965. Margulis first turned heads in the scientific world while serving as a junior professor at Boston University, when she developed a theory that plant and animal cells arose from the fusion of groups of bacteria.
Her theory was once considered radical, but is now widely recognized as mainstream, according to Newsweek magazine.
Margulis said she does not mind people questioning her theories. "I welcome good criticism -- "That is how science goes on," she said.
According to conventional wisdom, Margulis is an iconoclast. But she rejects that description as readily as she rejects much of the conventional wisdom of modern science.
"An iconoclast is one who destroys idols," she said. "I trespass the [scientific] field boundaries. The earth is continuous and we put in these arbitrary disciplines which can impede progress."
One of Margulis's firmest convictions is that biology should not be exclusively for biologists. Too often biology is improperly taught and improperly understood, she said.
Comprehensible knowledge is "couched" in a jargon incomprehensible even to some experts. In her speech and writing, Margulis tries to clarify and simplify the complexities of the living world.
Her newest book "What is Life" is an attempt to make modern biology understandable. She said even some scientists fail to understand all the intricacies of their specialty.
Margulis said that too often students of science want to "run before they can walk."
"Textbooks are too busy trying to train people to do useful things -- money-making things," she said.
"Nobody learns about organisms anymore," she said. "If they aren't taught in biology, when are they going to teach it?"
Margulis said that during her guest lecture on protista sex in Biology 16, not even the professor knew what she was talking about. She said this proves that biology classes do not teach the right kind of biology.
In addition to her latest book, Margulis has written more than 130 research articles and several books on subjects ranging from evolution theory to the Gaia Hypothesis.
Margulis wants to make her time at the College a bit of a vacation. She said she is looking forward to spending some time in the next few days "getting outside."
"I love northern New England," she said. "I brought my [cross country] skis with me, and I can't wait to get out there."
Margulis said she is glad to have this opportunity at the College to renew some friendships from her past.
"I realized I have friends here that I didn't fully remember," she said. Biology Professor "George Langford -- I have always been indebted to him for showing me how to handle termites."
Montgomery Fellows spend part of their stay interacting with College students, which is something Margulis said she has enjoyed a great deal.
Margulis is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Distinguished Professor of Botany at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
