Juan David Campolargo

Carl Woese

When a university slaps a name on a building, it usually means one of three things:

  • They wrote a fat check.
  • They shuffled papers in some back office (aka a boring bureaucrat).
  • They actually changed the world.

Carl Woese was one of the rare few in that third category.

Initially, I only recognized the name from the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. But the truth is, I discovered who he really was the way I've found many of the best things in my life: by wandering and letting curiosity lead the way.

Here’s how the story goes.

It was Reading Day, right before finals during my junior-year spring semester. While everyone else seemed stressed about exams, the early May weather was simply too perfect to waste indoors. It felt like one of those days meant for enjoying life, breathing deeply, and going for a walk. "I’ll study later," I told myself, and started strolling.

I left from the main quad, passing by the music building, when a realization struck: "Wait—I’ve never actually been inside that place," meaning the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB). Naturally, I decided to check it out. But as I approached, another nearby building caught my eye—distinct from the main IGB structure, yet clearly related. It turned out to be the IGB Gatehouse. Of course, I wandered inside.

As I explored, I kept thinking, "Man, I've walked past here a thousand times—even did biophysics research—but never actually stepped inside." I kept roaming, reading signs, soaking it all in. Eventually, I went upstairs, only to find the doors locked. Right as I was about to turn back, someone walked out and kindly held the door open.

Inside, I noticed several offices, some with open doors. One caught my attention immediately. It belonged to an artist, filled with incredible paintings inspired by biological systems. Curious, I walked in and struck up a conversation. We talked for nearly an hour until he suddenly remembered he had to get back to work. Grateful, I thanked him and continued down the hallway.

Then I spotted another office, larger, fancier, and intriguing for two reasons: first, an Ajax soccer flag hung proudly, and second, a personalized parking-lot nameplate displayed prominently: "Carl Woese."

"This person must be interesting," I thought, so I knocked on the door.

The office belonged to Bruce Fouke, someone fascinating in his own right. Bruce works at the intersection of geology, earth sciences, astrobiology, molecular biology, and medicine. He’s a truly interdisciplinary thinker. Last time I checked, he had eight campus affiliations, ranging from the Center for Global Studies to Earth Science and Environmental Change. He even met his wife scuba diving during one of his research expeditions. Bruce is endlessly curious and enthusiastic about literally everything. One of those rare souls whose default setting is childlike curiosity.

As we talked, Bruce shared amazing stories about research adventures around the world and spoke openly about how profoundly Carl Woese had shaped not only his science but his entire approach to life. He told me how grateful he was that Carl had been receptive to him back in 1997 and how that encounter ended up changing the entire direction of his career. Before I left, Bruce generously gifted me a copy of his beautiful book, The Art of Yellowstone Science - Mammoth Hot Springs as a Window on the Universe.

I walked out of that office, blown away, certain that Bruce needed to come on The UIUC Talkshow. I wanted to share his life story and his excitement with the world.

And sure enough, the following semester, we made it happen. We sat down for more than three hours, exploring how Carl Woese shaped him, the mysteries of Yellowstone’s microbiome, Bruce’s incredible personal story, and a hundred other fascinating detours.

Our conversation was special. I don’t say this often, but Bruce was genuinely one of the best guests we’ve ever had. Bruce’s energy was infectious, focused on the substance of research rather than the usual academic box-checking or playing it safe. He wasn’t afraid to think boldly or speak his mind. When we talked, he was in the middle of a new research project investigating cardiovascular disease with the Mayo Clinic. He could’ve been thinking about retirement or watching his words carefully, but instead, he was energized, fully alive, curious, and fearless. His stories flowed effortlessly, skipping from microbes to Mars exploration, coral reefs to jazz music, and even legends about Bigfoot sightings in Arkansas.

The conversation kept going wherever curiosity took it. Bruce was always asking some version of “What if?” and following it without worrying where it would land. He talked about students, colleagues, and family in a way that made it clear he genuinely cared about them, not just as names or roles, but as people. When heavier stuff came up—climate change, failure, mortality—he didn’t get dramatic or abstract about it. He treated those things as real parts of life that you deal with honestly and learn from.

That unexpected afternoon with Bruce Fouke planted Carl Woese firmly in my mind. What started as a casual walk turned into a lasting inspiration I'll never forget.

Carl Woese: The Sherlock Holmes of Biology.

Carl Woese was one of the top detectives of the 20th century, and that made him one of the greatest scientists, too. He wasn’t solving crimes, but he sure was cracking mysteries that were hidden right in front of everyone’s eyes—tiny microbes, so small you needed more than a microscope to even think about truly “seeing” them.

One day, Woese looked closely at tiny RNA molecules inside microbes and made a discovery: Life wasn’t divided into two groups (like everyone thought) but actually three. He named the new group Archaea (meaning "ancient ones"), distinct from bacteria and eukaryotes (plants, animals, and humans).

This discovery took Woese over a decade, with plenty of ridicule from the scientific community. Many dismissed him as crazy, labeling him the "rRNA crank." Yet he persisted because he saw something true and beautiful others couldn’t yet grasp. Eventually, undeniable evidence emerged, and his three-domain tree of life—Bacteria, Archaea, Eukarya—became widely accepted.

Detective work: done. Biology: forever rewritten. New cases: already waiting.

Woese's Moment of Courage

You’ve probably heard of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) andRNA (Ribonucleic Acid). DNA holds your genetic recipes, while RNA acts like a helper, copying recipes from DNA and bringing them to your cell’s "kitchen" to make proteins.

Carl Woese had a big dream: create a tree of life showing how everything alive is related. Before Woese, biologists mostly organized life by how things looked or behaved—think shapes, sizes, and chemical processes. But Woese saw through this immediately. He realized relying on outward appearances was like guessing someone's family history by their haircut or skin color. Maybe it’s sort of useful, but mostly it's misleading.

To really see how life connected over billions of years, he needed something stable, consistent, and universal. He needed something present in every living organism, something carefully copied from generation to generation, and something slow enough to mutate that it could reliably track evolutionary changes over deep time.

He chose to focus on microbes, especially bacteria and the then-undiscovered archaea. Microbes are tiny creatures about one-millionth of a meter across. At that size, tens of thousands of them could comfortably sit on the period at the end of this sentence.

And microbes are literally everywhere. They float invisibly through the air you're breathing right now, coat your skin, swim freely through the oceans, and thrive inside scorching hot springs or deep under icy glaciers. Pick up a pinch of dirt or a single drop of pond water and you’re holding billions of them in your fingertips. Quietly and invisibly, they run the planet: producing oxygen, recycling nutrients, decomposing waste, keeping ecosystems healthy, and even helping creatures like us digest our food.

If you gathered together every bacterium and archaeon on Earth, their collective biomass would outweigh all the planet’s animals, humans included—though not its plants, which still dominate Earth’s living mass. Their numbers are even more staggering: Earth’s bacteria and archaea total roughly five million-trillion-trillion individuals, a figure so vast that even the estimated count of stars in the observable universe looks tiny by comparison.∗

And here's what's even crazier: if all these microbes suddenly disappeared, the world’s ecosystems would collapse, and humans would be gone soon after. But if every other living thing vanished overnight, microbes would keep right on thriving, probably barely noticing we were gone.

Microbes might be invisible, but they're the unpaid interns of Earth, quietly cleaning up our messes, producing oxygen, digesting our food, and making sure life keeps humming along. Maybe we should finally give them some credit, throw a “World Microbe Day,” or at least give them a day off from our relentless obsession with sanitizing every square inch of the planet. Just kidding, keep wiping down your counters, they’ll be fine.

Inside each microbe are even smaller parts doing important jobs. One of the most important parts is something called a ribosome. You can think of ribosomes like little machines or workers inside the microbe. Their job is to build proteins, which are the building blocks that make life work. Each ribosome consists of two parts (subunits) packed with proteins and a special type of RNA—ribosomal RNA, or rRNA.

Woese realized these rRNA molecules were exactly what he needed: ancient, universal, and changed slowly enough to track life's deep history.

But Woese had to choose exactly the right piece of rRNA. Too short (like 5S rRNA), and he couldn't make accurate comparisons across diverse organisms. Too long (like 23S rRNA), and it was impossible to sequence accurately with the technology available in the 1970s. He needed something just right—a "Goldilocks" molecule—and that turned out to be 16S rRNA in bacteria and its slightly bigger cousin, 18S rRNA, in humans and other eukaryotes. Just right—long enough to be informative, but short enough to handle.

Woese focused intensely on microbial 16S rRNA because it was universal, stable, and acted like an evolutionary "barcode" that could identify relationships between organisms. Since microbes multiply quickly and hold ancient genetic blueprints, they promised to reveal evolutionary secrets.

Here’s how Woese actually did this.

First, he literally ordered many bacteria through the mail, buying freeze-dried packets of cells from culture banks. Imagine him receiving tiny vials, reviving the bacteria in nutritious broth until they multiplied into thick, cloudy soups of microscopic life. Once he had pure, healthy cultures, he grew them overnight, tagging their rRNA molecules with radioactive phosphorus so he could track them later.

Next, he broke open the cells, carefully extracted the labeled rRNA, and created molecular "fingerprints" by slicing the RNA into smaller pieces. Each organism left behind a unique pattern, like a distinctive barcode or fingerprint. Finally, he compared hundreds of these fingerprints, patiently sorting and clustering them by hand, using punch cards and photographs.

This meticulous, painstaking process, one that required him to nurture, label, and track billions of invisible microbes, allowed Woese to discover tiny yet consistent variations hidden within their 16S rRNA. These subtle differences formed a molecular clock that revealed how life evolved and how each organism was related to another.

Woese spent more than a decade chasing this discovery, more than ten years hunched over a tiny, glowing light box, eyes squinting through a magnifying glass, painstakingly comparing rRNA oligonucleotide fingerprints by hand.

Now, a nucleotide is like a tiny LEGO piece, and just like how different LEGO pieces fit together to make something bigger, nucleotides are the building blocks of DNA andRNA, which carry the instructions for building life. Each nucleotide is made up of three parts: a sugar (which forms the structure, providing the foundation for the entire molecule), a phosphate (which acts like the connector, linking one nucleotide to the next), and a base (the decorative piece that carries the information).

Woese carefully pieced together these tiny building blocks, one by one, to reveal the hidden relationships between all living things.

Imagine that. Over a decade of relentless, tedious work, often alone, sometimes alongside his research partner George Fox, with no guarantee he'd find anything.

Imagine the weight of all those years of uncertainty, of doubt, of moments when it felt impossible.

But imagine, above all, the sheer courage it took to keep going. Over ten long years, Woese battled skepticism, isolation, and self-doubt, driven purely by the belief that something important (and beautiful) was hidden in those tiny variations.

And finally, after all that struggle, he found it: an entirely new domain of life, Archaea, completely distinct from bacteria, despite looking similar under a microscope.

Initially, Woese’s molecular methods seemed strange compared to traditional biochemical tests. His approach—reading genetic "barcodes" from tiny rRNA molecules—seemed abstract, mysterious, and maybe even impossible to replicate. Big-name biologists like Salvador Luria and Ernst Mayr openly mocked Woese, dismissing him as a crank lost in meaningless details, an "rRNA crackpot" chasing shadows.

But Woese persisted. He kept building undeniable evidence until the scientific community had to accept his groundbreaking discovery.

Discovering Archaea was incredible, sure, but what truly changed biology forever, what solidified Woese's legacy, was bigger than that.

It was the bravery and determination he showed in developing rRNA as a tool for understanding evolutionary relationships, the very first, and still the most reliable, genetic clock capable of mapping how every living thing on Earth connects through time.

That courage, that stubborn commitment to see what others couldn't. That's Carl Woese’s real legacy.

Was Your High School Biology Wrong?

In biology class, you probably learned there were two main groups of cells:

  • Prokaryotes: cells without a nucleus
  • Eukaryotes: cells with a nucleus and organelles

That distinction remains useful for understanding basic cell biology.

But Carl Woese showed that grouping all nucleus-free cells ("prokaryotes") together was evolutionarily incorrect. Instead, he proved that the supposed single block of “prokaryotes” actually contains two ancient, genetically separate lineages:

  • Bacteria – the familiar germs of textbooks and petri dishes.
  • Archaea – outwardly similar to bacteria (no nucleus, tiny size) yet as evolutionarily distinct from them as either group is from plants or people.

Woese’s 1977 paper introduced Archaebacteria (soon shortened to Archaea ) and, in 1990, he formalized the Three-Domain system.

In short, life isn’t split into just two huge groups of “simple” and “complex” cells. Thanks to Woese, we now know that Bacteria and Archaea are deep, separate branches, and that eukaryotes either form a third domain or emerge from within Archaea, depending on which modern tree you favor.

Thanks, Carl!

How Carl Woese Changed Biology

Carl Woese fixed more than a typo in biology textbooks, he changed the entire book. By challenging the oversimplified view of life we’d been taught, Woese made three massive contributions:

  • He completely redrew biology’s family tree. Instead of two big groups (cells with a nucleus and cells without), he showed there were actually three: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya (that's us!).
  • He pioneered a whole new way of studying evolution, called molecular phylogenetics. Instead of relying on how things looked or behaved, he went straight to their genetic "barcodes," using ribosomal RNA (rRNA). This let scientists see clearly how organisms were related, even when their appearances were misleading.
  • His approach helped make sequence-based microbial evolution and metagenomic thinking central to modern biology: PCR, the backbone of modern DNA tests—from COVID swabs and cancer screenings to solving decades-old cold cases; metagenomics, which lets scientists study entire ecosystems without growing a single microbe, revealing hidden outbreaks in city sewage or new species in deep-sea vents; and CRISPR, the revolutionary gene-editing tool now curing genetic diseases like sickle cell, engineering malaria-proof mosquitoes, and transforming crop resilience in a changing climate.

Microbiologist Norman Pace summed up Woese’s impact perfectly:

"Woese is to biology what Einstein is to physics."

In another interview, he went even further, stating:

“Woese did more for biology than Darwin… Darwin didn’t have the originality of Woese.”

Fun fact: According to Nigel Goldenfeld, a close friend and collaborator of Woese, Carl didn't read Darwin’s On the Origin of Species until around 2000. As Goldenfeld explains, "What interested him more was not whether evolution had occurred, but the speed of evolution."

Favorite Quote

You have to have your own particular sensitivity to the world and there has to be parts of it that are beautiful simply because they are beautiful to you, regardless of what anybody else ever thinks.

You see this all the time in an artist and you see it also in good scientists.

—Carl Woese

This is one of the most beautiful quotes I've ever read.

Beauty, intrinsic meaning, and the courage to think for yourself.

Woese isn’t talking about beauty in an aesthetic sense, not just photons hitting your eyes or sound waves reaching your ears.

Beauty will save the world

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

Instead, it’s the kind of beauty that Fyodor Dostoevsky described: beauty as something powerful enough to genuinely change you when you encounter it.

When Dostoevsky talked about beauty, he wasn't just saying something looks nice. He meant that when you call something beautiful, whether you know it or not, you're also making a moral judgment. You're tapping into something bigger and connecting that thing to deeper ideals, higher truths, and even the universe itself.

Beauty, in this sense, isn't just about appreciating what's in front of you. It's about feeling the connections between everything and letting that realization push you toward curiosity, discovery, and love. It's a reminder that you're always connected to something greater than yourself.

We all know this feeling, when a musician expresses something you can’t quite put into words, when a poem unsettles you, or when a scientific idea feels unexpectedly moving.

Carl Woese’s life illustrates this orientation toward beauty. He saw something meaningful in the tiniest details—microbes, ribosomes, rRNA—things most people overlooked or dismissed. But he didn’t hesitate or ask permission. He just followed it, obsessively, stubbornly. And in doing so, he became a kind of instrument for a deeper truth, something the universe had been whispering all along, waiting for someone to listen.

Great artists and great scientists tap into exactly this kind of beauty. When they sense something genuinely beautiful to them, they trust their instinct and pursue it wholeheartedly, even when no one else gets it. By doing this, they connect to something bigger and guide the rest of us toward a richer, deeper understanding of life.

Great Science = Nobel Prize?

At this point, you might be thinking:

“Okay, this Carl Woese guy sounds pretty important. Did he win the Nobel Prize?”

And you're absolutely right. He’s probably the greatest scientist you've never heard of, and winning a Nobel would've helped fix that whole obscurity thing.

But here’s the catch: Woese wasn’t exactly great at playing the Nobel Prize game. He was stubborn, quiet, and pretty blunt. Instead of charming the scientific community at conferences or debating critics publicly, he mostly kept to his lab, sending letters to editors or writing sharp, intense op-eds whenever he felt misunderstood.

Harris Lewin, who knew Carl personally and served as the founding director of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, described him this way:

I absolutely adored him for his lack of political correctness, acerbic wit, fluid mind, and his scientific genius.

Make no mistake, Carl Woese was a genius—an imperfect idiosyncratic genius, and something of a “scarred revolutionary” as he was called in Science.

He could be mercurial and seemingly irrational (refusing to go to Washington in 2000 to receive the National Medal of Science because he did not want to shake Bill Clinton’s hand).

But to the few close to him, Carl was also a person of rare humility and humanity.

—Harris A Lewin, Memories of Carl from an improbable friend

His sometimes difficult personality didn’t exactly boost his popularity. The task of defending and promoting Woese’s groundbreaking work publicly fell to colleagues, especially Norman Pace, who was brilliant at making Woese’s complex ideas accessible and coining catchy phrases people could understand and appreciate.

But personality alone doesn’t explain why Woese, a scientist who fundamentally changed biology, never got a Nobel Prize.

First, blame Alfred Nobel himself. Nobel set up categories for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology/Medicine, Literature, Peace, and later Economics, but nothing purely for biology. Woese’s discovery, deeply biological and evolutionary, never fit these narrow boxes. It wasn’t directly medical enough for Medicine, and it didn’t neatly explain a chemical reaction. So Woese’s revolutionary discovery fell through Nobel’s cracks.

Timing also played a role. Woese’s ideas were openly mocked throughout the 1980s and only gained widespread acceptance in the 1990s. Even after acceptance, the discovery never fit the Nobel categories—too evolutionary for Medicine, too concept-driven for Chemistry—so later structural work on ribosomes (honored in 2009) could be rewarded while the breakthrough itself remained outside the prize’s scope.

How did Carl himself feel about it?

Privately, he admitted to colleagues in the early '90s that he wanted the Nobel, at least partly to silence his critics once and for all.

When he finally received biology’s closest equivalent, the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy in 2003, he wrote excitedly to a friend: “The Archaea have been knighted—this is a glorious day.”

But publicly, especially later in life, Carl downplayed prizes altogether, famously stating, “The most joyful moment to a scientist is simply finding things out.”

When I asked around campus why Woese never won the Nobel Prize, I kept hearing the same bittersweet story. As his health declined from pancreatic cancer, the scientific community rallied once more to get him the recognition he deserved. But time ran out, he died before the Nobel committee could act. And since the prize can’t be awarded posthumously, Carl never got the formal honor.

In a revealing 2003 interview after receiving the Crafoord Prize, Carl explained clearly how he felt:

Interviewer: You were awarded the prestigious Crafoord Prize this year for your discovery that archaea are not bacteria, but represent a separate third domain of organisms. How do you feel now?

Woese: I feel very good. This award is the formal and ultimate recognition of what I have given to biology— namely, the genetic approach to classifying the microbial world.

Interviewer: In terms of prestige, this award is equivalent to a Nobel Prize. Do you now experience the same hype as a Nobel laureate?

Woese: Not at all. There weren't many reactions. Some friends congratulated me, of course. But here in America, only the Nobel Prize counts; Americans don't register anything else.

—Hollricher, Karin, Die frühe Evolution war chaotisch[Early evolution was chaotic]. Interview with Carl Woese, 2003 (English translation)

Then came my favorite part of the same interview:

Interviewer: "What will you do with the prize money? It’s half a million dollars, after all. Will you retire with it?"

Woese: "No, absolutely not. Of course, I want to continue researching. And the money—I have no idea what I'll do with it... But I do know: first, I'll pay $290,000 in taxes."

Sure, Carl got the money, but had to hand more than half of it right back to the IRS. Maybe missing the Nobel Prize wasn’t all bad after all...

What Carl Woese Hated The Most

If you’ve ever walked past the Carl Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB), you've definitely noticed those weird statues out front. They’re strange, blob-like things. They’re not exactly ugly, but they’re not interesting either. Mostly, they’re just… odd.

Turns out Carl himself didn't just dislike them, he absolutely hated those things.

Harris Lewin, a friend and colleague of Carl, explained the story behind it:

Nearly a year before the institute opened, I began work with a campus committee on selecting the artwork for the institute. I had decided that we needed a major art piece on the plaza, rather than inside the institute.

The Illinois “Art-in-Architecture” program required by statue that a significant fraction of the building costs be devoted to public art. In all, we had about $370,000 to spend! I wanted to do something to honor Carl’s discoveries with symbolic trees, and we invited a state-wide competition on that basis. The finalist in the process was Tony Tyson, an irreverent award winning artist from Chicago. I invited Tony for a discussion with Carl, which the institute has on videotape. It was a fascinating discussion. Carl walked away feeling that Tony really “got it” and would produce something to his liking.

The problem was that Carl absolutely detested Tony’s concept.

At first, I did not like it much either, but Jonathan Fineberg, the chair of the art-in-architecture committee, took me out after work, and with a good bottle of red wine, changed my mind. Rosane also loved the concept, which helped sway me the other way. I found that people either loved it or hated it—with no gray zone at all. In the end, I decided to go with the whimsical three pieces, all identical except for color and size, and to Carl’s great chagrin, I named the area and piece “Darwin’s Playground”—a name I found far better than “The Blobs” given by Tony (see Fig. 3).

The pieces became somewhat of a local tourist attraction because of their size, color, and otherworldliness in the context of all that glass, masonry, and metal, but for Carl, they were blasphemous. He refused to have an office that overlooked the plaza and avoided walking through the front entrance so he would not see them.

In the end, Carl moved to an interior office with no windows, which suited him just fine.

Eventually, he forgave me, but I received a few good fatherly lectures along the way. I felt awful, but the decision had been made, and in the end, I think it was the right one for the institute and the university. But it was never easy to have a disagreement with Carl, and he had a long memory for people whom he felt were plain idiots, phonies, or had disrespected him in some way.

—Harris Lewin, Memories of Carl from an improbable friend

Eventually, Harris tried to smooth things over:

Darwin’s Playground, the artwork at IGB detested by Carl.

A couple of years later, I spent most of the remaining funds for artwork for an exhibit on the third floor of IGB, near his office. This piece, which spans two walls, forms an illustrated timeline of great discoveries in science (including Carl’s) and in cybernetics at the University of Illinois, overlaid with historical context. Carl really liked this piece and it was my way of making it up to him.

—Harris Lewin, Memories of Carl from an improbable friend

Yes!!! Go Cybernetics!!!

On Darwin

Carl Woese didn't really hate Darwin. Instead, what he passionately opposed was the idea of “Darwin-only” biology, which is this narrow view that Darwin’s theories fully explained everything about life and evolution.

Carl spent four decades arguing that Darwin’s ideas applied only after life passed what he called the “Darwinian threshold.” Before that threshold, evolution wasn't about competition and survival of the fittest at all. Instead, early life evolved through shared experiences and massive gene swapping, forming a collective network rather than a competitive one.

Woese described the history of life this way:

  • Before the Darwinian Threshold: Life existed as loose communities. Cells traded genes constantly through horizontal gene transfer. Instead of stable lineages and family trees, there was just this messy, collective network of gene-sharing. It wasn’t Darwinian evolution. It was a communal, almost physics-like system.
  • Crossing the Darwinian Threshold: Eventually, genomes became stable and inheritance reliable. Only then did vertical inheritance (genes passed directly from parent to offspring) become dominant. That’s when distinct, tree-like lineages crystallized.
  • After the Threshold: Only then did Darwin’s familiar world—of natural selection, survival of the fittest, and clearly defined species—really kick in. The three domains—Bacteria, Archaea, and eventually Eukarya—each solidified into stable evolutionary branches. Horizontal gene transfer still happened, but only occasionally—not as the main evolutionary force.

Carl Woese himself explained clearly in 2002:

The time has come for biology to go beyond the doctrine of common descent.

—Carl R. Woese, On the evolution of cells

Woese’s big idea was that Darwin described only Phase Two of evolution. Phase One—the messy, communal era that preceded it—was completely missing from biology textbooks. As Woese put it, biology had forgotten its own early history, like starting a book halfway through and never realizing the first chapters were missing.

He made this crystal clear in his later writings. In a famous paper titled Biology's Next Revolution (2007), written with physicist Nigel Goldenfeld, Woese said explicitly:

We regard as rather regrettable the conventional concatenation of Darwin's name with evolution, because there are other modalities that must be entertained and which we regard as mandatory during the course of evolutionary time.

Woese saw Darwin’s dominant position in biology as similar to Freud’s past dominance in psychology, something essential at first, but eventually needing to be expanded beyond or even replaced as new insights emerged. When asked if Darwin would eventually go Freud’s way as biology entered a more complex, nonlinear era, Woese replied.

Woese: It could well do that. I've maintained for a long time up until the end of the 20th century that the problem of the evolutionary process is a problem before its time. Darwin was trying to get personal credit by barging in. Conceptual thought about evolution was laid down first by people like Buffon and Darwin's own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin — whom Darwin never mentions in the Origin of Species except in a footnote when he was forced in the third edition to add it to the footer of the preface. He named him in a dismissive way. He basically said, oh yes a lot of people thought of that. And he named people like Buffon and Lamarck. But he didn't name his own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin except to say in that his grandfather had the same wrong ideas as Lamarck and Goethe. And he didn't say what they were or what his objection to them was. He wanted to distance himself from his grandfather as much as he could...

—Suzan Mazur, Evolution Scientist Carl Woese Dies: 'The Most Important Evolution Scientist of the 20th Century'

Woese acknowledged openly that his broader view hadn’t yet changed biology’s mainstream culture:

Interviewer: It's wonderful that you're making these breakthroughs without encountering too much hostility from classical biology.

Woese: But I have not overthrown the hegemony of the culture of Darwin.

—Suzan Mazur, Evolution Scientist Carl Woese Dies: 'The Most Important Evolution Scientist of the 20th Century'

Yet Carl continued advocating a broader view, seeing it as essential to addressing biology’s biggest questions:

The important questions 21st-century biology faces all stem from one fundamental question—the nature and generation of biological organization, the quintessential problem in complex systems. Yes, Darwin is back, but alongside a differently and more powerfully trained group of scientists, who see much further into the depths of biology than was possible before. It is no longer a ‘10,000 species of birds’ view of evolution—evolution seen as a procession of forms. The concern is now with the process of evolution itself.

—Carl R. Woese, Q&A

Yet Woese also deeply respected Darwin as a scientist. In an interview late in his career, when asked what scientific figures inspired him most, Woese surprisingly mentioned Darwin:

And then of course, Darwin, whose writings I encountered rather late in the game, but increasingly turn to, as my foray into evolution deepens. How he could have been so right about so much? Astounding!

—Carl R. Woese, Q&A

Woese recognized Darwin’s brilliance. What frustrated him was biology’s obsession with Darwin alone. He saw Darwin’s theory as essential, but incomplete. Woese’s goal was never to discard Darwin entirely but to expand biology’s vision, adding the missing first chapter of evolution.

When asked directly about the development of life’s three domains (Bacteria, Archaea, Eukarya), Woese described an even more radical idea, that there wasn't just one single primordial ancestor:

Interviewer: How do you imagine the development of the three domains of bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes?

Woese: The three designs began in the RNA world, they evolved from different structures, and they were self-organizing systems.

Interviewer: So there was no primordial cell?

Woese: Exactly!

Interviewer: But at least three primordial cells?

Woese: I think many, many more. But only three designs ultimately managed to cross the Darwinian threshold, independently of one another and presumably at different times.

Interviewer: Which means nothing other than that Darwin was wrong with his hypothesis that "all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form...“ If he were still alive today, what would he be working on and with whom?

Woese: In my lab.

Interviewer: Why?

Woese: ( laughs ) Not because I'm the best. There are many good scientists. But he would work, as he did in his time, at the cutting edge of science. Now, classical evolutionary biologists have retreated from this front and are only working on details. Now, molecular evolution is at the forefront. That's where Darwin would work. Because with these methods, one can now ask and answer questions that were previously unthinkable in the classical context.

—Hollricher, Karin, Die frühe Evolution war chaotisch [Early evolution was chaotic]. Interview with Carl Woese, 2003 (English translation)

Carl Woese summed it up beautifully (and a bit sarcastically):

“Evolution is no tinker. Evolution is a schlub who never finishes anything.”

Responding to Francois Jacob’s concept of evolution as Tinkering, Carl remarked, “Evolution is no tinker. Evolution is a schlub who never finishes anything.”

—David Graham, Think of the reader and you will write your best

He wanted biology to realize its own limitations, move beyond Darwin-only explanations, and build a new framework capable of addressing life’s deepest mysteries. Woese called it the “unfinished business” of biology, a deeper understanding of how life organized itself before Darwin’s competition-based evolution took over.

In the end, Woese never toppled Darwin, he ring-fenced him. He made sure Darwin’s ideas were placed in the correct context: powerful, insightful, but describing only one part of a bigger, messier story.

Carl Woese didn’t hate Darwin. He just knew biology’s story wasn’t finished. and Darwin alone wasn’t enough to complete it.

“Biology know thyself! Uphold your end of the bargain with society; provide it the counsel, the understanding of biology, it so badly needs. Mankind needs to appreciate itself as part of the evolutionary flow that is life.”

_Carl Woese, Q&A

God, Evolution, and Carl Woese’s Hidden Spirituality

Carl Woese’s scientific work was shaped alongside his personal, often hidden, beliefs about spirituality, evolution, and even God.

Harris Lewin, Carl’s friend and colleague, shared a surprising side of Carl few people knew:

During the next few years, I began to see many changes in Carl. Although clearly thriving in the IGB, he was deeply frustrated by his inability to formulate evolution in its proper scientific terms. It seemed as if he was heading down the same road as Einstein, with his Unified Field Theory.

Carl believed that evolution was a property of all living and non-living systems. He postulated that evolution extended beyond the “Darwinian Threshold” before cellular life began. Was molecular evolution all thermodynamics or were there evolutionary processes guiding pre-cellular life as well? Was there a broader role for evolution, writ large, in the universe?

These questions haunted Carl. In our frequent discussions, Carl was able to explain his thoughts in evocative terms, but he was unable to formulate the evolutionary processes in mathematical terms, for which he looked to Nigel and his fellow physicists for inspiration.

Carl deeply believed that there was directionality to evolution, that evolutionary processes were not merely the result of random genetic events, and that there was indeed a force in the universe that created it all.It will come as a surprise to many, but Carl believed in God, and was quite a spiritual person.

However, Carl was deeply suspicious of religion and religious people. And he detested those like Richard Dawkins who used science and evolution as a tool to deny the existence of God.

In Carl’s mind these things were never to be mixed, faith and science, because he felt God was truly unknowable and science depended on factual evidence. He never discussed these views publicly to my knowledge, but he freely shared them with me, especially toward the end of his life. I was surprised and moved by his deep sense of spirituality, which I believe helped him to bridge the untimely short gap between his life and his death.

—Harris Lewin, Memories of Carl from an improbable friend

Woese himself explicitly rejected linking atheism with science:

Yes, I do not like people saying that atheism is based on science, because it’s not. It’s an alien invasion of science.

—Suzan Mazur, Evolution Scientist Carl Woese Dies: 'The Most Important Evolution Scientist of the 20th Century'

Woese’s discoveries led to disagreements over how early evolution should be understood, particularly in discussions of life’s earliest ancestry.

Richard von Sternberg argued that Carl Woese’s discoveries suggested that all life might not have come from one single, original living ancestor. He maintained that findings such as the three-domain split and the prevalence of horizontal gene transfer call into question the idea that all life descends from a single “last universal common ancestor” (LUCA).

LUCA refers to a hypothetical population of ancient cells from which every modern bacterium, archaeon, and eukaryote ultimately descends. It isn’t necessarily the very first life-form on Earth, just the most recent common node that links all organisms alive today.

Most evolutionary biologists still accept LUCA, but Sternberg contends that Woese’s network-like view of early life leaves room for multiple, semi-independent ancestral lineages rather than one exclusive progenitor.

Sternberg suggested there could have been more than one starting point for life. Some skeptics of evolution and intelligent-design writers tried to use this uncertainty about early ancestry as support for their own arguments.

But Woese strongly clarified his position:

It’s basically correct to say that I don’t challenge common ancestry itself, but rather the idea of a single common ancestor cell giving rise to all three domains of life.

My theory, in fact, poses a bigger problem for creationists and intelligent-design advocates—though they haven’t realized this yet. Special creation says life started fully formed. Intelligent design imagines distinct mechanisms crafted separately. My theory says neither of these is true.

I’m perfectly fine if someone wants to say God set up the world to evolve. That belief doesn’t affect my science any more than Newton’s belief in a mathematical God affected his physics. You can proceed scientifically whether or not you assume divine creation. Creationist or intelligent-design beliefs belong exactly where they always did—in religion, and rather immature religion at that.

—Carl Woese, email to Douglas Theobald (archived)

Woese repeatedly cautioned people against confusing Darwin’s insights about evolution with a rigid "Doctrine of Common Descent." He emphasized Darwin’s theory did not depend on common descent. Darwin himself had acknowledged multiple primordial forms could have arisen initially:

Where did this doctrine come from?

Why, Darwin, of course: didn’t he say that all life stems from a single primordial form? Indeed he did.

But look at the context and way in which Darwin addresses the issue in Origin of Species. Herein we read (12): “. . . [we may infer] that all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth may be descended from some one primordial form. But this inference is chiefly grounded on analogy and it is immaterial whether or not it be accepted. No doubt it is possible, as Mr. G. H. Lewes has urged, that at the first commencement of life many different forms were evolved; but if so we may conclude that only a very few have left modified descendants.”

That doesn't sound like doctrine to me! Darwin was merely speculating about ultimate origins—a great gap in our knowledge and something to be defined and resolved when the time came. For Darwin, common descent was an open question, an invitation to discussion. What elevated common descent to doctrinal status almost certainly was the much later discovery of the universality of biochemistry, which was seemingly impossible to explain otherwise (49). But that was before horizontal gene transfer (HGT), which could offer an alternative explanation for the universality of biochemistry, was recognized as a major part of the evolutionary dynamic.

—Carl R. Woese, A New Biology for a New Century

Woese rejected attempts to use his work as evidence that evolutionary theory was false. He argued that such interpretations misrepresented his views

“To say my criticism of Darwinists means evolutionists have no clothes is like claiming Einstein’s critique of Newton means Newtonian physics is wrong. Debates over evolution’s mechanisms don’t challenge evolution itself. Intelligent design is not science—it makes no predictions, offers no explanations beyond ‘God did it.’”

—Carl Woese, quoted by Douglas Theobald and Evan Ratliff

The Protocell Controversy: Playing God in the Lab?

Woese was skeptical about scientists creating artificial protocells: a life-form in the lab.

He expressed concern that such experiments risked crossing ethical lines and blurred the boundary between studying life and attempting to construct it.

Interviewer: Do you have any concerns about the creation of a protocell?

Woese: Oh yes. There are some, as you know, Craig Venter is beating the drum on this all the time, just to be at the forefront. Power.

Interviewer: There are also the Harry Lonsdale researchers, who are approaching it from the bottom up. UC- Santa Cruz origin of life scientist David Deamer, for example, says he plans to make a protocell within roughly a decade.

Woese: Good luck.

Interviewer: You have concerns about the protocell.

Woese: I have concerns about scientists thinking that they're God when it comes to biology. Scientists should be trying to study the experiments that nature has already done in the form of the evolutionary process...

—Suzan Mazur, Evolution Scientist Carl Woese Dies: 'The Most Important Evolution Scientist of the 20th Century'

Some of Woese’s reflections parallel themes found in physicist Richard Feynman’s writing on uncertainty and the limits of scientific understanding.

It always bothers me that, according to the laws we understand today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what happens even in the tiniest space-time region. How can all that complexity fit into something so small?

Ultimately, physics might not require complex mathematics—eventually, the machinery of nature might reveal itself, and laws could be as simple as a checkerboard, despite apparent complexity.

—Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law

Woese often expressed a similar emphasis on uncertainty and restraint in how science approaches nature.

Carl Woese was many things, a revolutionary scientist, a fierce critic of dogmatic thinking, and quietly spiritual. He rejected both religious fundamentalism and scientific arrogance, seeing no contradiction between believing in God and exploring life’s deepest evolutionary secrets.

For Woese, the greatest respect one could show the universe, and perhaps God, was never to assume we had all the answers.

Advice to the Curious: Serendipity, Science, and The Road Less Published

Everyone wrestles with the same question at some point: “What do I do with my life?”

Most of the time, people answer this question by thinking “practically”—asking, "What do others expect me to study? What's easiest to get funding? Can I publish before others do?”

Woese was aware of these pressures, but he refused to let them drive his decisions.

He focused on questions that extended beyond short-term career considerations or prevailing research trends

Larry Gold, recalling Carl’s early mindset, gave this advice:

Students and postdocs and even the better assistant professors often wonder, as Carl did in Schenectady, about their life’s work—“what in the world should I pipette?” That most difficult question is answered most of the time by careerist choices—“what do others want, what will get funded, can I win the race to publish over others, and so on?”

Carl was fascinated by those questions, and yet he refused to be influenced by those concerns.

I often tell people, or at least the few who ask me as I recede slowly into the haze, that each day one ought to look in the mirror (while brushing your teeth, for example) and ask if on the way to work you were killed by a bus would anything change for the science you have chosen. If the answer is NO one ought to get back in bed with a good book, walk the dog, or play basketball—one ought to not study the things that have become small scientific cottage industries.

For example, I loved alanine scanning the first time I read about it, and didn’t love it the next 300 times. Or promoter “bashing”—we do need to use the technologies that evolve in the same way that Carl used Sanger RNA sequencing and then NGS, but always for the purpose of asking and answering a real question.

And that was the heart of Carl, the lesson for us all: ask real questions (in your science and in everything else), don’t piddle around with the one life you get, even mishandle a few rats with your lucky young friend in Schenectady while you are thinking about the questions that you must study to be alive.

—Larry Gold, Carl Woese in Schenectady: The forgotten years

That philosophy was the very heart of Carl Woese’s approach to science and life: ask real, meaningful questions, don't waste your one precious life piddling around with trivial topics.

He was willing to tolerate uncertainty and discomfort early in a career while searching for work he found genuinely important.

Woese also believed deeply in serendipity, but not blind luck.

Responding to a colleague whose highly unconventional idea from decades earlier was finally gaining recognition, Carl wrote:

Ah,

Serendipity favors the prepared mind.

And a well prepared mind tends to make its own serendipity.

And you are the only one who remembers about the crazy idea,

And you are not afraid to have crazy ideas of you own.

And you are being dealt, dealing yourself, a good hand now.

This is a lonely road, and the version of it you are traveling seems

particularly so right now.

It is a pleasure to see your science going so well.

Good hunting.

Carl

—Robin R. Gutell, Ten lessons with Carl Woese about RNA and comparative analysis

Carl Woese’s approach to choosing a research direction was straightforward.

His philosophy was simple-if you decide to do something make sure that if it works as planned that it will say something worthwhile. If there is competition from others doing essentially the same thing (assuming they knew how to do it) then Carl would say let them do it-our skills are more useful elsewhere.

—George Fox, Remembering Carl

Larry Gold summarized Carl’s views this way:

Follow your passions. Study what you insist is important. Surround yourself with good people who like to giggle. Work hard. Respect the history of science. And be respectful of the lineages that got us here.

—Larry Gold, Carl Woese Memorial

Carl Woese wasn't interested in small incremental advances. His message to young scientists, and really to us all, was direct.

Don’t spend your life chasing after things that won't truly matter. Ask meaningful questions, prepare your mind, embrace serendipity, and always choose depth over ease.

Advice to Future Biologists: Don’t Start with Biology

What would Carl Woese say to someone thinking about becoming a biologist?

Do not study biology seriously to begin with.

First obtain as broadly based a scientific education as possible. That way you can enter biology with a well-honed scientific sense and an open and inquisitive mind. And when you do study biology, start from an historical base; understand what underlies the current trends, and so what their limitations are. Again, a matter of perspective.

Biology today is still governed by the 20th century molecular perspective, which cannot see any important questions left to answer! This spent paradigm sees only a future dedicated to application, service to society.

This is an outlook that is turning biology into a service discipline, into bio-engineering.

—Carl R. Woese, Q&A

Woese’s close colleague Larry Gold emphasized how much Woese himself embodied this approach:

Woese had trained at Yale as a biophysicist, Gold reminded me, not a biologist. “He didn’t know any biology. He knew less biology by the time he died than I know,” Gold said self-deprecatingly. “That’s a terrible thing to say. But he didn’t really think about biology. He was thinking about what happened 3.5 billion years ago. That’s not biology.” It’s more a gumbo of physics and molecular evolution and geology, Gold meant. But the deep history, going back those billions of years, lay at the core of understanding evolution, as Woese tried to do it.

—David Quammen, The Scientist Who Scrambled Darwin’s Tree of Life

Broaden your education. Question biology’s assumptions. Stay curious. Think deeply.

Don't settle for biology as merely a tool for engineering. Remember, biology’s most fundamental questions about life are still waiting for someone brave enough to ask them.

How Carl Woese Changed People's Lives

There are countless stories about Carl's personal impact, but two in particular highlight how mentorship, openness, and collaboration can shape a scientist’s life and career.

Bruce Fouke remembers vividly his first days at the University of Illinois. A brand-new assistant professor, Bruce, took a chance and made a bold phone call to Carl Woese himself.

I’d been here for a week, and I met a professor named Carl Woese,

He was, you know, with the Carl R. Woese Institute, where I’m at a lot. I met him that first week. He was already bigger than life in terms of his stature in the field, but I had the good fortune to meet him.

My offices were in the Natural History Building next to the Union, andBurrill Hall, Microbiology and things, just across the street—so everything is close. I called him.

My experiences in places like Chicago and Berkeley—great places—taught me it’s not always easy to get hold of a really, really famous professor, and even if you do, they might not have time. For some reason—courage, stupidity, or some mixture—I called him randomly:

“Oh, Professor Woese, I would love to talk to you. I’m a geoscientist; at that time my background was coral reefs and hot springs and those kinds of things. I’d like to bring life—DNA, RNA, protein, and all the things life does—more into the geosciences.”

He said, “That sounds really, really important. What are you doing right now?” Literally: “What are you doing right now?” So I hung up, walked across the street, and went to sit down.

I was excited, but you know you’re in the presence of such immense accomplishment and knowledge—very respectful. We started talking and just hit it off.

Then he—Carl—said something like, “A lot of what you’re talking about are things I’ve thought about. To have a geoscientist involved in these ways—trying to bring microbiology and biology into the geosciences—is important. Often it’s microbiology or biology bringing a little geoscience into biology.”

He asked, “Would you consider letting me mentor you, and would you undertake a very serious initiative to learn the basics of molecular biology yourself?”

I had just started the tenure track—another big gulp. You prepare for so long, but still: Holy cow, what have I gotten into? He posed that question. I thought for a moment and felt in my heart, This is it.

“Professor Woese, I would be so grateful. I will commit completely. I’ll keep my grounding in geosciences—earth science—but I will work feverishly to learn with you and from you, and also from Abigail Salyers, another professor in Microbiology.”

Everything ignited from that point. I kept doing the geosciences, built a program, and then brought all the molecular biology into it. I’m so thankful to have had the chance to build here, thanks to a lot of help, patience, and support from other people.

I’ve been able to build a very strong geobiology program; that’s why we can study everything from hot springs to coral reefs to aqueducts to human hearts.

For me, arriving in Illinois as a brand-new assistant professor—I had no idea. I thought I’d done some broad interdisciplinary things, and then I got here and the lid blew off: Wow—look what’s possible when working with world-class people who are so genuine, thoughtful, and unselfish with their time and expertise.

I went full bore. Now I’ve been—again, very thankful—director of the Carver Biotechnology Center for twelve years. It’s the group on campus that does high-throughput DNA, RNA, and protein analyses.

Very prominent people from around the world still come; we give tours or talk about using our facilities. They’ll ask, “Why is a geologist the director of a world-class DNA-RNA-protein facility?” I politely laugh and say,“Why not? All the sciences are integrated, and the questions of the future require integrated solutions.”

I try to be gentle; I never want someone to feel bad for asking. But when I’ve given major lectures—maybe four or five hundred people—in medical or biological venues, more than once I’ve been introduced with, “You’re the first geologist I ever met.” I always answer,“I’m glad we’re breaking that cycle.”

—Bruce Fouke, _UIUC Talkshow Interview

Another great story from Nigel Goldenfeld:

At exactly 2 pm on Friday September 20, 2002, I received the most important email of my life. Originating from a computer mysteriously called “ninja,” the sender wasted no time on getting to the point:

“This is Carl Woese, over in Life Sciences. I'd like to talk to you at some point about moving the teaching of biology into the 21st century. Molecular biology clearly has lost (run out of) its vision, and a new and very different biology needs to emerge. I have been told of your interests, and know, thereofore [sic], that you are atune [sic] to what I’m talking about. I would like to see at least some cognizance on the part of card carrying biologists of complex dynamic systems, an appreciation for the fact that the cell is indeed a complex dynamic system and evolved in such a manner. My telephone is 3–9369, if you care to discuss the matter with me.”

Naturally, I responded with alacrity, writing that

“I am a theoretical physicist, but tend to work on topics that are regarded as out of the mainstream by most of my colleagues … I don’t know very much about biology, and worse, I don’t think I have the sort of mind that can be engaged by or penetrate much of the subject. Despite these handicaps, …”

Carl’s response was frank and, to be honest, tremendously exciting to me:

“You may not feel too much at home with biology as it now stands, but if I am any judge the field is decidedly moving to meet you.“

So began a scientific partnership and friendship that lasted more than a decade until his death. During that time, we met nearly every day and talked on the phone or via email otherwise. Looking back at these fragments of correspondence, it is remarkable to note how much of our future trajectory was set in those initial exchanges. Carl had indeed set his sights on a goal of making biology a quantitative science with roots in complex dynamical systems, but his enlisting a theoretical physicist to his cause was more than a way to help create a new breed of biologist—one with better math skills. Carl himself had trained as a physicist, with a BA in Mathematics and Physics from Amherst College in 1950 and a PhD in Biophysics from Yale three years later. Thus, he was no stranger to the great value that quantification could provide to biology. In fact, what Carl wanted was to complete his understanding of the evolutionary history of all life on Earth, a program of research that he had begun to think about seriously during the 1960s. That program of research had been articulated with clarity in a letter to Francis Crick dated June 24, 1969, a lengthy extract of which was reproduced in our article on the historical and conceptual relationship between microbiology, molecular biology, and evolution theory.

—Nigel Goldenfeld, Looking in the Right Direction: Carl Woese and Evolutionary Biology"

Why Become a Scientist?

Carl Woese described becoming a scientist as a necessity rather than a choice:

Interviewer: Why did you become a scientist?

Woese: I had to. No other way to cope with my world. Hard to explain though, because the child who made the decision was too young to verbalize it. There seemed to be two worlds, that of nature and that of people.

The first was vast, wonderful, inscrutable, frightening, exciting, enticing, always moving, but nevertheless with an immutable consistency – it was a never-failing touchstone of truth.

The world of people was the opposite: inconsistent, ever-arbitrary, full of contradiction, anthropomorphizing, untrustworthy – almost devoid of truth. Growing up was a continual search for truth. In mathematics and science I finally found it; the ‘q.e.d.’ of geometry and Newton's Laws were like a warm shelter in a storm.

Why I became a biologist is unclear, though. I had no scientific interest in plants and animals and took only one ‘bio’ course (biochemistry in my senior year) at college. However, a young instructor in physics named Bill Fairbank – who later went on to become a world class low temperature physicist – advised me not to go into physics, but into the exciting new field of biophysics, and to do so at Yale, whence he had just graduated.

I followed that advice, and here I am.

—Carl R. Woese, Q&A

Music & Science

Scientists are often described as if their lives revolved entirely around their work, with little attention to anything beyond it.

Carl Woese did not fit that description.

Science was central to his life, but music, especially jazz, mattered to him as well.

Much of his time was spent outside labs and classrooms, listening to music and engaging with interests that shaped how he thought and worked.

Harry Noller shared a memory that reflects Carl’s love of music:

We talked late into the evening sitting in his cramped study, listening to jazz. He had been an amateur jazz pianist, and we had a few chances to play some tunes together. On one occasion, he even surprised me by hiring a rhythm section (piano, bass, and drums) and a rented saxophone for me to play one evening in his living room. He especially revered Art Tatum, Miles Davis (Carl named his cat “Miles”), and Ella Fitzgerald (especially her rendition of “Miss Otis Regrets”). When he was feeling content, this part of Carl's personality would sometimes emerge in the form of a quiet scat chorus or two to himself.

—Harry F Noller, Secondary structure adventures with Carl Woese

Bruce Fouke also described how closely Carl saw the relationship between music and science:

From my own life journey, art and science are absolutely inseparable—always running, mixing, and interacting with the same approaches and expressions. Professor Carl Woese loved jazz music and often drew an analogy to the “music of life”: DNA is written in just four “notes” (A, G, C, T), yet from that simple score comes the vast diversity of living things.

—Bruce Fouke, _UIUC Talkshow Interview

Carl Woese did not treat jazz as a casual interest. Music was central to who he was, just as much as science. He saw connections between jazz, life, and scientific inquiry, and those connections shaped how he thought about biology.

Did Carl Woese Know Heinz von Foerster?

When I first thought, “Did Carl Woese know Heinz von Foerster?” I immediately felt, “Now that would be amazing!” So, I started researching, and guess what? They did know each other!

Both Woese and von Foerster taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign during overlapping periods. Woese joined the microbiology faculty in 1964, and von Foerster retired in 1975.

A 2023 profile of Daniel Wolf, a UIUC donor and alumnus, reveals that Heinz von Foerster personally introduced Wolf (who was a grad student at the Biological Computer Laboratory or BCL) to Carl Woese’s molecular-genetics class. The article even notes they “continued discussions” after the initial introduction. Additionally, BCL publications were later spotted displayed outside Woese’s lab, suggesting a friendly connection.

Well, that’s something I did not quite expect. Imagine_The Whole University Catalog_or Metagames right outside Woese’s lab. So cool!

I personally reached out to Daniel Wolf, hoping to learn more, but that went nowhere fast. After initially questioning if my name was a pseudonym (despite my attempts to explain myself clearly—twice!), he ended up repeatedly asking me for a CV and refused to talk to me. Not exactly the open conversation I was hoping for, so unfortunately, no stories there.

However, in Heinz von Foerster’s archives, there was a document in a box labeled “Woese, Karl, 1971,” confirming at least some interaction between them. So I reached out to my friend Vishal Kavitha (aka Vishu Da King), and he generously went to the library to do some archival digging. Huge thanks to Vishu!

What Vishu found were original handwritten notes by von Foerster from a meeting with Carl Woese on March 3, 1971, likely at Carl’s home, possibly with his wife Gabriella present. The notes are hard to decipher, but you can clearly make out words like ribosome and evolutionary model, suggesting they were discussing Carl’s ideas in molecular evolution. Vishal scanned and shared these incredible notes with the world (here they are!).

Another interesting connection was Stewart Brand of The Whole Earth Catalog, which actually inspired The Whole University Catalog.

According to Paul Schroeder, Brand financed the production the production of the BCL 1974 class book Cybernetics of Cybernetics.

And in a 2011 Edge article, Brand referenced Carl Woese’s remarkable insight that bacteria make up about 80% of Earth's biomass.

So yes, Carl Woese and Heinz von Foerster not only knew each other, they interacted, exchanged ideas, and influenced one another’s thinking at UIUC. And that’s pretty incredible.

Small world!

What I Took Away

Carl Woese’s life resonates with me because it confirms something I deeply believe: the greatest discoveries happen when you wander off your planned path, follow your curiosity without hesitation, and trust yourself to see beauty where others might not even look.

We can learn a few lessons:

  • Study what you absolutely must, no matter what anyone else thinks.
  • Pay attention to your calling, not just today, but for a lifetime.
  • Challenge conventional wisdom, not to be contrarian, but because your own eyes and data force you to.
  • And when things stop making sense, look closer, measure harder, and redraw the map entirely.

Carl’s life was an example of independent thinking. When Carl started doing Sanger RNA sequencing, DNA technology was brand-new and completely terrifying. Some biologists literally worried the sequencing tanks might explode. But Carl jumped in anyway and embraced these cutting-edge methods without hesitation.

Established “experts” may know yesterday inside out. But newcomers can sometimes see tomorrow first, precisely because they have not yet learned which tools they are supposed to ignore.

Trust yourself. Use the newest tools. Chase the ideas that feel obvious to you before they become obvious to everyone else.

A few years ago, I was at a party in Miami Beach filled with investors, entrepreneurs, and people who worked with or had been backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund venture capital firm. The collective net worth at that party was more than most countries, with all the big names behind the apps and companies we use every day. And depending on when you read this, maybe even future presidents or cabinet members of the government.

Thiel is famous for asking this question: What important truth do you know that most people disagree with you?

It’s his way of filtering for people who see the world differently and aren’t afraid to bet on it. As an investor, he’s not just looking for good ideas. He’s looking for contrarian insights that, if right, could change the world.

That night, Mike Solana, Vice President at Founders Fund, kept hitting me with a slightly different version: What do you know that older people don’t? What’s obvious to you that your parents’ generation just doesn’t get?

I knew that if I ran into anyone from Founders Fund, I’d be asked something like that. Still, even knowing it was coming, I didn’t have a good answer at the moment. It took hours and days for something interesting to come to mind.

The question stayed with me. Our greatest insights, or perhaps our most original contributions, are often hiding inside seemingly obvious questions like that.

Sometimes the answer is simple. Like the fact that kids are using new mediums to communicate, and most adults have never even heard of them. But inside those simple facts are seeds of opportunity for invention, creativity, and discovery. Whether in business, science, or philosophy.

This connects back to another lesson I take from Carl’s life: focus

Instead of constantly jumping from one new trend to the next, Carl lived by Charlie Munger’s advice: “Take a simple, basic idea, and take it very seriously.”

Carl devoted himself to his idea for years, even though it took decades for the world to recognize just how important his discovery was.

So, focus more!

The story of Carl Woese will always remind me to have the courage to think independently, take simple ideas seriously, stay focused, and above all, trust my own kind of beautiful.

Learn more

Asking Nigel Goldenfeld.

After reading Woese’s essay, I was so inspired that I immediately sent Nigel Goldenfeld an email. The exchange belongs here because it shows the exact thing Woese keeps forcing you to confront: big questions are easy to gesture at and hard to answer.

My email

Hi Dr. Goldenfeld,

A few questions I'm curious about that I can't find the answer anywhere or really know the answer myself, therefore, this email:

  • In your collaboration with Carl Woese you framed the dawn of life as a non-equilibrium phase transition: a gene-sharing molecular ‘soup’ crosses a Darwinian threshold, freezes into lineages, and launches the evolutionary tree we recognize today. With today’s metagenomic torrents, single-cell data, and the tools of statistical physics at hand, what smoking-gun signature or scaling law would finally convince the broader community that this collective-transition picture is correct (or falsify it)—and how might such evidence reshape our view of evolution not just in microbes but in systems as diverse as cancer or cultural innovation?
  • Why haven’t biologists replaced the textbook theory of evolution with a new, widely accepted framework that includes those big system-level jumps—and what would it take to make that update happen?
  • Is there consistency in Metagenomic data?
    • There seems to be aka the "fossil record of collective dynamics"
  • What is the universal scaling law?
  • How does the world change when we have the evolutionary equivalent of E = mc²?
  • Metagenomics whispers that life’s diversity obeys a handful of repeatable scaling rules. If it can be proven, they emerge from a phase-transition framework. Can you have the E = mc² equivalent?
  • Your group (and a handful of others) have proposed power-law relationships that fit diverse metagenomic datasets surprisingly well, but the constants and exponents are still being pinned down.
    • Is this a matter of handling lots of data? And isn't ai perfect for this? In the next year, AI will mostly likely make discoveries in astrophysics. Since its just data, why isn't the case for this question? AI meaning the ai labs themselves, not necessarily in a university
    • The problem seems to be labeling, right? Companies like ScaleAI figured out the labeling question. Horizontal-gene-transfer event depends on phylogenetic context, mobile-element annotations, and time stamps. Even state-of-the-art tools like LocalHGT still need curated reference genomes and report ~99 % precision only after heavy pre-filtering. But pre-filtering is pretty much a fixed problem?
  • What will be the full theory of evolution? taking into account environment, biology, the universe itself?
  • So it seems clear that evolution will become a branch of statistical physics—just as thermodynamics subsumed combustion after E = mc², the tree of life with its phase diagram, how would this look like this? If not, why is this the wrong frame or way of thinking about it?
  • Besides everything already mentioned, will biology ever become engineering, meaning will we ever get the same predictive power that physics won in 1905? Evolutionary engineering? how does the world look like at this point?

Thanks,

Juan David Campolargo

His reply

Dear Juan David,

Thank you for the interesting questions. They are very broad and fundamental, and I can't really answer them I'm afraid. For example, I have no ideas why "biologists" haven't advanced in their thinking about evolution. I think some of them actually have, so there is a wide spectrum.

In any case, I don't propose to answer your questions, because I do not know the answers. I do not know what is the evolutionary equivalent of E=mc^2, for example. I try to answer these things as much as possible in my published papers.

Sorry to disappoint. Hopefully you can try to answer yourself the questions that fascinate you. (I know you are a very talented and creative person, judging from your website.)

Glad you liked my online lectures, thanks for the feedback.

Best wishes,

Nigel Goldenfeld

Ouch. I was afraid he might respond like that. It’s not the first time I’ve gotten a reply like this, but it never hurts to try. Sometimes a well-placed question can spark an idea, who knows, maybe it could even lead to a research project.

Back to Carl Woese’s paper. He also strongly argued biology had derailed and degenerated become an “engineering discipline,” focused too much with applications rather than the big fundamental questions and the deepest mysteries of how life came to be.

It’s very important to realize the context of the essay when it was published. This was one year after he had won the Crafoord Prize, which meant he had clout. He could have been more afraid, more careful about what he said, but he didn’t care he used his newly obtained status to call out the field and wake people up.

“How else could one rationalize the strange claim,” Woese wrote, “by some of the world’s leading molecular biologists (among others) that the human genome (a medically inspired problem) is the ‘Holy Grail’ of biology? What a stunning example of a biology that operates from an engineering perspective, a biology that has no genuine guiding vision!” A science like that, intent on changing the living world without trying to understand it, he added, “is a danger to itself.”

Front cover for The Jailbroken Guide to the University
Use the appendixThe back of the book is part of the book.

The appendix keeps the examples, guides, profiles, and source trails close. The book gives them sequence, context, and a way to turn curiosity into action.