Written by Lincoln Barnett, The World We Live In spanned a diverse range of topics concerning planet Earth and universe, and employed the talents of artists and photographers, including cameramen Alfred Eisenstaedt and Fritz Goro and artists Rudolph Zallinger and Chesley Bonestell.

[4] Descartes simplified it to rational animal (only to then vainly reject its usage), while Linnaeus devised the Neo-Latin name of Homo sapiens, "man the wise."

[6] Those who seek fame and gain in Pythagoras are no doubt rational, and do wonder, but they choose not to pursue philosophic investigation, which is as yet only a possibility within them.

[7] Since wonder and rationality are the same type of object and serve the same purpose of being the specific difference of man, one might suspect that they are to some degree the same thing.

The record of the rocks presents a stepped sequence of species already complete, but the concept of evolution requires continuous change.

After the chemical structure of genes and chromosomes was deciphered by Watson and Crick and was published in 1953, the ability to reconstruct parts of the genome, or genetic map of a species, ensued.

[11] Barnett indulges in this sort of speculation himself at the end of the part on mammals, anatomically selecting the human brain (Part VI, LIFE p 109): "a convoluted mass of soft tissue which enables him to perceive the world around him with unique acuity and respond to stimuli with a subtlety and self-consciousness that sets him apart from all other living things.

It invests him, moreover, with a power which no other creature ever possessed – the power to modify the environment, to govern and alter the very course of evolution ...."The passage expresses a studied optimism, but, in the middle of the 2oth century, there is a certain degree of prophetic hypocrisy about it: “Of the more than one million species of animals on earth man is capable of killing all but a few without recourse to the weapons he ingeniously contrives for his own destruction.”This expression of unease about the outcome of the wonder story long after Barnett’s death would become shrill cries of warning concerning the human impact on the environment.

Amidst doubts about how successful rationality is as a strategy over geologic time, the theorists were finding increasing difficulty in defining it and discovering when it began.

He presumes, following anthropological tradition, that the growing skills of man are linked to the increase in brain size (a presumption often questioned and still not proved).

Each part was assigned to a reporter, who was granted eight months to research the subject, organize the data, and oversee the photography and artwork.

[16] After its successful run at LIFE magazine, The World we Live in was released in book form in 1955,[33] abridged in 1956 for younger readers by Jane Werner Watson,[34] and re-released in a three-volume "Family Edition" in 1962.

Some of Chesley Bonestell's art, notably the painting illustrating the end of the Earth, were removed, possibly because they were seen as dated by then.

His work is a selective summarization of some of the major scientific theories about "the world we live in," greatly enhanced by prize-winning art and photography.

While Nobel Prizer Sir Winston Churchill had an easier subject, he can't hold a candle to this guy Barnett".

His main weapon of attack was his murderous mouth which had a gape of incredible size and was armed with rows of six-inch saberlike teeth.

"[39]Finally, apparently as part of Barnett's effort to interest a wide audience, the text features quotations from non-scientific literature, including the Judaeo-Christian Bible.

Concerning the few Biblical quotes, one reader remarked that the "text was written as if the clergy were looking over Mr. Barnett's shoulder and crossing out anything that might be in conflict with the story of Adam and Eve".

At the time of publication, his parts were up-to-date with contemporary theories on the natural world, but major scientific breakthroughs in astronomy, geology, and biology date the series.

The sections on various biomes such as the desert, rainforest, and woodland, which depend on more immediate observation, are still more or less accurate as far as they go, which today is more limited in reach.

Neither Barnett nor any other writer had any hint of the massive changes to the biomes caused by climate change, such as the rapid melting of the polar ice caps, the bleaching of most of the world's coral, and the threat to the atmosphere's ozone layer, narrowly placed in abeyance by world collaborative action.

By the time the book version was being published, endorsements were printed by notable people, including paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews, filmmaker Walt Disney, and Admiral Richard E. Byrd.

[45] Eventually, a letter from the Committee was published announcing that they had "raised to funds to purchase and study these woods and adjoining woodlands", adding that Life's article "not only stimulated several hundred persons to contribute to the fund to save one of the last primeval American forests, but encouraged the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America to contribute $75,000 in memory of W. L.

George Olshevsky also cites The World We Live In as introducing him to science, and adds that he suggested authoring an updated version; however, LIFE's editors were not interested.

The magazine series finally presents the ancestors of modern Europe (Celts) and then ends abruptly, without a book edition for the time being.

After helping to produce the various editions of The World We Live In, Barnett went back to his true passion, natural History.

From the June 30, 1958 to the October 19, 1959 issues, an eight-part series, The Wonders of Life on Earth traces the development of Darwin’s Theory of evolution, portraying the places and species that influenced his thought in eye-catching color photographs.

[48] Data collected during this international research undertaking unexpectedly proved and resurrected Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, the foundation of today's plate tectonics in geology, yet the magazine mentions it no further.

Barnett forged ahead with the book form of the Darwin series, returning to the title and concept of The Wonders of Life on Earth.

In his place Time Life has recruited other notable writers and scientists in their fields, such as Willy Ley, Francis Clark Howell, and Niko Tinbergen.