Just thinking about things can be a source of scientific progress

I just read "One step beyond a ribosome: The ancient anaerobic core", by Filipa L. Sousa, Shijulal Nelson-Sathi, William F. Martin, published in Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1857 (2016) 1027–1038

It is a fascinating paper. I particularly enjoyed the following concluding line:

"With regard to the most primitive forms of microbial physiology, microbiologists reached the same conclusion 45 years ago, namely that methanogens and acetogens probably represent the most ancient lineages. We required 2000 genomes and powerful computers for our conclusions, while Decker et al. just thought about it. Evidently, just thinking about things can be a source of scientific progress."

I like to think about things, I like to think especially about photosynthesis ;)

Fossil stromatolite