I Contain Multitudes By Ed Yong

In the excerpt from Ed Yong’s book I Contain Multitudes, he artistically argues the importance of studying microbiomes, in relation to other scientific disciplines. To craft his argument, he uses analogies to show the likeness between the Earth’s ecosystems and human internal body functions, personifies small organisms to evoke compassion from the reader, and utilizes the personal pronoun “we” to create a sense of social cohesion.
The study of microbes is often neglected due to the apparent minuscule effect it has on humans, but Ed Yong persistently drew comparisons between the small microbes and the grandness of Earth’s ecosystems. He lists the various ecosystems in the world, ranging from rainforests to salt marshes, and directly after uses a parallel sentence structure to list the “ecosystems” in the human body. In a similar instance, in a repetitive format …show more content…
By using these devices, he highlights the semblance between the highly studied ecosystems of the world to the communities of microbes. This allows readers to transform their concept of microbiomes as something negligible into something complex and worth studying. It also allows readers to visualize how knowledge of the world’s ecosystems can translate into an understanding of our own microscopic functions. This translation is further mirrored in Yong’s explanation of how the study of microbiomes can be used to understand the living creatures around us. For example, he explains how a squid’s luminous bacteria can help us learn about the