We are Systems, Not Categories

I recently learned a new word: holobiont . A holobiant is an animal or plant and all the symbiotic microorganisms living on or inside it, including bacteria, fungi, and viruses. I'm one, you're one. "We ourselves are not singular," writes Rebecca Solnit in her new book The Beginning Comes After the End , "each of us, but plural, a cooperative community. About half the cells in our body do not have…