Why is gaia important

James Lovelock will always be associated with one big idea: Gaia. It cites the independent scientist as the first to use the term ancient Greek for Earth in this way, in On 26 July, Lovelock will be ; his long career has sparkled with ideas. His first solo letter to Nature — on a new formula for the wax pencils used to mark Petri dishes — was published in But, unusually for a scientist, books are his medium of choice.

He has written or co-authored around a dozen; the latest, Novacene , is published this month. That is, how could you tell if a planet such as Mars harboured life? Final warning from a sceptical prophet. With microbiologist Lynn Margulis, Lovelock published a series of papers on the subject. Lovelock and L. Margulis Tellus 26 , 2—10; That was the beginning of a sustained and developing argument, in the face of sometimes dismissive criticism, that recast Earth as, in effect, a superorganism.

Earth system science is now firmly established as a valuable intellectual framework for understanding the only planet known to harbour life, and increasingly vulnerable to the unthinking actions of one species.

Colleagues and co-authors acknowledge that the argument continues, but endorse the importance of Lovelock and Margulis. Lee Kump goes further. Each volume made its case more forcefully than the last, exploring what was known first as the Gaia hypothesis, then simply as Gaia, and the hazards facing either the biosphere or humanity.

Gaia Education is an international organisation active in 55 countries on six continents, with a year track record in education for sustainable development and with more than 25, graduates around the world and partner organisations. Why Gaia? All that go upon the goodly land And all that are in the paths of the sea And all that fly: All these are fed of her stone.

Read More about Gaia Education. Gaia Education is committed to the principle of transparency in its operations.

Gaia Education is present in 54 countries. Indeed, he cites the paradox, which the Daisyworld model seeks to explain: how has the earth maintained a perfect temperature for abundant life when the intensity of the sun's rays has increased by thirty percent?

Flannery, Ultimately, Flannery does not fall behind one theory over another in general, but he regards the Gaian world view as more pertinent to investigating the issues in climate change, whilst rejecting any notion of teleology: 'so let's use the term Gaia as short hand for the complex system that makes life possible, while recognising all the while that it may result from chance' Flannery, The philosopher Mary Midgley also supports the Gaian advancement of the Theory of evolution and suggests a further reason why the reductionist biologists such as Richard Dawkins found the idea of Gaia so improbable.

Darwin himself also rejected a key tenet of what is now included in the Darwinian evolutionary theory, that evolution is a steady rising process of progression and improvement Midgley, Midgley states that Darwin never held this to be true saying 'he thought it vacuous, pointed out the obscurity of the metaphor 'higher', and relied on no such paid-up cosmic insurance policy to bail out the human race' Midgley, Midgley's discussion of Dawkins' ideas has direct relevance to Gaia's place in the theory of evolution; like Flannery, Sagan and Lovelock himself, she sees Gaia as a complimentary aspect of the development of this theory, not a rejection or denial of it.

Is the Extended Phenotype science or philosophy? An example of this is how Gaia has developed the idea of interdependence within ecosystems to a global level, and has moved against the tide of reductionnist tendencies within evolutionary biological thought of the time. Article by E. Based on a work at www. Can Government policy make the difference? Minerals, Landscapes and Heritage. Introduction When considering how the Gaia Theory has informed and developed ideas within Ecology, it is expedient to consider how these two entities are defined.

Gaian influence on the development of the Theory of Evolution. References Allaby M. Optima, London. Allaby M. OUP, Oxford. Dawkins R. Flannery T. Penguin, London. Free A. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Henson R. Rough Guides, UK. Laland, K. And yet the dog did not bark. The temperature of Earth has not risen in tandem. Rather, it has stayed more or less stable, just what is needed to support life. There was not much reaction to these papers, and by the mids, Margulis moved on to other interests, although she remained sympathetic to Gaia until the end of her life.

Lovelock persisted and increasingly took his case into the public arena. After that, as he says in his autobiography, things changed overnight, and from that day to this Lovelock has never left the public eye.

A flood of letters started to appear in his mailbox, and they have continued ever since albeit now in electronic form. But the reaction from the world of mainstream science was altogether less enthusiastic. O n the strength of his prowess as an inventor, in Lovelock was elected to the Royal Society in London.

A few years later, in , Margulis was elected to the American equivalent, the National Academy of Sciences. Lovelock and Margulis were mocked and scorned by the professional scientists. They were figures of fun and even contempt. Richard Dawkins, author of the bestseller The Selfish Gene , led the baying pack. His objection to the Gaia theory was, not surprisingly, evolutionary.

As an ardent opponent of group selection, he could not accept that things could happen for the good of the group simply because they were for the good of the group. Either it was a byproduct of their functions, or it must be of immediate benefit to the plants themselves.

Any other interpretation was contrary to a Darwinian view of life. A few years later, John Postgate, a microbiologist and Fellow of the Royal Society, was withering in his critique. Gaia was the biggest pile of nonsense he had ever come across and more than that, it was dangerous. The planetary organism! Am I the only biologist to suffer a nasty twitch, a feeling of unreality, when the media invite me yet again to take it seriously? He continued:.

He was a chemist, she a microbiologist. Earth is in homeostasis so it is living. Life is produced by natural selection, by the competition between individuals for reproductive success. What is more, as far as Dawkins and other evolutionary biologists were concerned, Earth was not produced by natural selection, and hence it is not itself a living thing. In this sense, the two sides of the fight were simply talking past each other. People got into Gaia groups. The scientists might have hated Gaia, but the general public loved it.

They embraced Lovelock and his hypothesis with enthusiasm. Churches had Gaia services, sometimes with new music written especially for the occasion. And the range of enthusiasts was — and still is — broad. At one end of the spectrum was the English philosopher Mary Midgley. Scourge of the sloppy and hater of the condescending and overconfident, she embraced Gaia with enthusiasm and continues to do so to this day. At the other end of the spectrum were a motley crew — the deep ecologists, the ecofeminists, and, especially in California, where Lovelock had first thought of the idea, the pagans.

He is the founder of a new religion, the Church of All Worlds, and he even persuaded the Internal Revenue Service to give him the tax exemptions given to regular religions. Finally, he is a man who independently of Lovelock hit on the Gaia idea, something he initially called Terrabios.

But, willing to accept the priority of a fellow traveler, Zell-Ravenheart now preaches Lovelockian Gaia to all who will listen. Pagans, like many small groups, are pretty adept technologically, and it is they who are responsible for much of the internet interest and advertising. Gaia theory: hated by the scientists, loved by the public. T o do this we need to go to the first real Gaia enthusiast, long before Lovelock, and before Dawkins or any other scientist — to Plato, years before Christ.