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Margulis, inspired by the work of little-known biologists, revealed and proved these mergers for us.  At first, her worked was rejected and scoffed at.  It did not fit the still-dominant neo-Darwinian paradigm that tells us all evolutionary novelty comes from natural selection acting on genes and the gradual accumulation of random genetic mutation.  But eventually these symbioses were accepted because they could not be ignored

our physical selves are universes composed of the movemenst, biological agreements, and interactions of these beings.

"Identity is not an object; it is a process with addresses for all the different directions and dimensions in which it moves..." Margulis once stated, with her colleague Ricardo Guerrero.

Indeed, symbiogenesis has been observed in the lab.  An amoeba population, accidentally infected with bacteria was observed over long periods of time, and soon enough, the infecting bacteria could not be removed from the infected amoeba without killing the organism. 

Gaia is the work of the relational loops of push and pull between bacteria, other organisms, and the environment

But Lovelock came up with an understandable and accesible metaphor in the form of a computer program called Daisyworld.  Daisyworld is not the "proof" of Gaia: Lovelock and his colleague Andrew Watson devised the program to see if living and environmental factors could theoretically interact without intention. 

After she found James Lovelock, they worked on making those processes known.  Their collaboration resulted in Gaia Theory, which was a disciplinary symbiosis -- the theoretical expression of Margulis's interdisciplinary life.

Gaia processes are real and observable (and sometimes referred to as "biogeochemistry", a term more acceptable to mainstream science).  Furthermore, the five kingdoms (bacteria, protoctists, fungi, plants, animals) of life are all touched by symbiosis

"Gaia," Margulis's former student Greg Hinkle said, "is just symbiosis as seen from space."

All animals have symbiotic partners in their guts.  Remove these symbionts and the animals die.

Many neo-Darwinist concerns circled nervously around words like "Gaia" and "cooperation" (which Margulis did not like to use).  They were, perhaps rightly, concerned that these terms were ripe for religious appropriation.  But Margulis herself was outspoken against such mishandling of her research. 

Along with the many detailed examples of bacterial mergers at varying levels of cellular complexity, the world revealed by Acquiring Genomes is also a world of mating between distinct phyla

What is definite is that the merging of beings is key, and symbiogenesis offers a clearly observable alternative to the consistent but woefully incomplete neo-Darwinian paradigm.

David Bohm, who said

"Science is the search for truth...whether we like it or not."

Microcosmos show us a bacterial view of the world.  Bacteria exchange their genes laterally.  This means they don't pass their genomic information only when they reproduce (though this can happen), but also  through their simple existence.

it's much more complex than that -- there is something "in it" for every symbiont,

"Gaia is not merely an organism."  The Earth is beyond stale conception.  It is more magnificent and active than we can imagine.  Gaia is object and process.

this complexity is impossible to incorporate in a linear and reductive understanding.

If Gaia is conscious, it possesses a consciousness of a different magnitude, probably of a different order all together.

To encompass complex systems with our thinking, we must imagine a model that is less like "cause-effect" more like "being-manifestation."  That is, multiple layers and numerous agents of forces unconsciously conspire together, and their conspiring is so intermingled, that it is simultaneously cause and effect, and thus beyond both. 

Dawkins, who claims to be an atheist, relies on a host of selfish angels within us and the possibility for meme-salvation to justify his theory.  He substantiates his magical worldview on a meager past of scientific work.

Perhaps as we -- in the newly and deeply connected world of the internet, social profiles, and globalization -- witness the dissolution of the cult of isolated individuality and embark on understanding a clearer and more nuanced view of individuality, so to will we ready ourselves for a clearer view of evolution and life.

Now that Margulis has died, it remains our choice to catch up with what she and her life's work have set in motion.  To do so, we must bring together the many fields of knowledge she embodied.  Biologists must talk to physicists, virologists must talk to geologists, cosmologists must talk to microbiologists, and scientists musty talk to non-scientists.  This motion of meeting and exchanging ideas, if we act with it, will evolve our thinking.