The birth of bacterial genomics since the mid-1990s brought withit several conceptual modifications and wholly new controversies. Working beyond the scope of the neo-Darwinian evolutionary synthesis, a group of leading microbial evolutionists addresses the following and related issues, often with markedly varied viewpoints:

· Did the eukaryotic nucleus, cytoskeleton and cilia also orginate from symbiosis?
· Do the current scenarios about he origin of mitochondria and plastids require revision?
· What is the extent of lateral gene transfer (between "species") among bacteria?
· Does the rDNA phylogenetic tree still stand in the age of genomics?
· Is the course of the first 3 billion years of evolution even knowable?