The Gaia hypothesis

The Gaia hypothesis is immensely appealing to me because it encourages a spiritual relationship with Mother Earth. Scientists (scottishinnz!), I'd like to know what you think of Lovelock's theory.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The Gaia hypothesis is immensely appealing to me because it encourages a spiritual relationship with Mother Earth. Scientists (scottishinnz!), I'd like to know what you think of Lovelock's theory.

Do you have any links?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Do you have any links?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

Originally posted by rwingett
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

"While it is arguable that the Earth as a unit does not match the generally accepted biological criteria for life itself (Gaia has not yet reproduced, for instance; it still might spread to other planets through human space colonization and terraforming), many scientists would be comfortable characterising the earth as a single system."

Actually, this depends on whether life originated on earth or perhaps came from off-planet. Perhaps MomaGaia sent out her spores and our little Gaia is the result...

As far as consciousness is concerned, who knows? Just how much evidence of your consciousness would the cells in your stomach find?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The Gaia hypothesis is immensely appealing to me because it encourages a spiritual relationship with Mother Earth. Scientists (scottishinnz!), I'd like to know what you think of Lovelock's theory.

I don't put a whole heap of faith in the Gaia hypothesis (can it be tested? I don't think so!!! But Gaia idea doesn't sound so good....). It fails for me on a number of levels. First, as pointed out by Jade, earth doesn't reproduce. Second, earth per se has no metabolism. Earth doesn't grow. Personally, I think the whole thing is an exercise in 'touchy feely' to keep the most left-wing milatant environmentalists happy. Doesn't appeal to 'mainstream' - quite whatever that is - scientists. Even the idea on which it is founded, that life creates conditions for it's own survival, is pretty at odds with reality. The reality is, before multicellular life, prokaryotes photosynthesized for 2+ billion years, pumping out toxic (for them (and us, if you get too much)) O2: in effect killing themselves. It's just all too 'group selectionist' for me. Definately goes against Darwin too much.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The Gaia hypothesis is immensely appealing to me because it encourages a spiritual relationship with Mother Earth. Scientists (scottishinnz!), I'd like to know what you think of Lovelock's theory.

I read Lovelock's book a while ago and I walked away from it with the feeling that I'd just wasted a couple of hours of my life. It's not that his theory is necessarily implausible, but I have two major problems. First, I just don't believe him. Far too much of the book was wishy washy enough for me to disregard his evidence as great idea, now show me how it works. Secondly, I have a real problem with the concept that we could all just sit back and watch as the world deals with itself, this seems to me a) Utterly irresponsible and b) what if the world decides we've had our time? I'm not holistically utilitarian enough to believe that our extermination would be beneficial to the universe, call me selfish...

I think that, whilst there is something to be said about the natural balance of life on earth and the interplay present to achieve it, there needs be no additional element to it on either a spiritual level or indeed a cognitive one, outside the bounds of human involvement.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The Gaia hypothesis is immensely appealing to me because it encourages a spiritual relationship with Mother Earth. Scientists (scottishinnz!), I'd like to know what you think of Lovelock's theory.

I consider myself a scientist. I dont think the Gaia hypothesis makes any sense at all. I also dont think that there is anything "spiritual" about it nor do I think that an "immensely appealing" hypothesis should be considered on those grounds when there is no other evidence for it.
It does however play with the fact that the word "Life" is not well defined.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
I don't put a whole heap of faith in the Gaia hypothesis (can it be tested? I don't think so!!! But Gaia idea doesn't sound so good....). It fails for me on a number of levels. First, as pointed out by Jade, earth doesn't reproduce. Second, earth per se has no metabolism. Earth doesn't grow. Personally, I think the whole thing is an exerci ...[text shortened]... ust all too 'group selectionist' for me. Definately goes against Darwin too much.

Well, one part of your text isn't entirely true: The earth does grow,
not exactly biologically speaking but it does get heavier, it collects
about 100,000 tons per year of meteorite dust. There are some
theories some of that dust has microbes from outer space, ala
Fred Hoyle.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Well, one part of your text isn't entirely true: The earth does grow,
not exactly biologically speaking but it does get heavier, it collects
about 100,000 tons per year of meteorite dust. There are some
theories some of that dust has microbes from outer space, ala
Fred Hoyle.

Yeah, well, okay. But it's not really true 'growth', in the same way that when you get covered in mud you don't 'grow' by the mass of the mud. I guess accumulating mass and growing aren't really the same thing...

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Yeah, well, okay. But it's not really true 'growth', in the same way that when you get covered in mud you don't 'grow' by the mass of the mud. I guess accumulating mass and growing aren't really the same thing...

Yeah well, it certainly would be strange if the Earth went though mitosis.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I consider myself a scientist. I dont think the Gaia hypothesis makes any sense at all.

Why?

As for the spiritual side, it's a handy way for Goddess worshippers to claim scientific justification for their beliefs. You can see that, can't you?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The Gaia hypothesis is immensely appealing to me because it encourages a spiritual relationship with Mother Earth. Scientists (scottishinnz!), I'd like to know what you think of Lovelock's theory.

As a follower of Dao, The connection between earth and life is as scientific as it gets. The doing nothing that starman mentions, is not doing nothing, in fact completely the oposite, its just knowing when to leave well alone, something that we as a species seem to have lost the ability to do.
Also, i would like to point out that Chinese culture has brought a wealth of knowledge and scientific (?) discoveries to the world, many of which the west are now realising the benifits of. These thing would not be if not for "wu wei"- Doing nothing. 🙂

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The Gaia hypothesis is immensely appealing to me because it encourages a spiritual relationship with Mother Earth.

Forget the spiritual excusivism, Bossy. 😞 Think about the natural parallels...

😉 If a termite is crushed underfoot, do all the other termites in the colony die? And does any one termite have any idea why they are building that 20ft high mound/colony? But it works - promotes reproduction!

Air circulation and heat moderation allow the colony to provide a home to the many little crawly critters within - think of your favourite politician, think of your least favourite neighbour? - but the fact of the matter is that none of the termites have any idea why they are individually engaged in polluting the desert with their colony. In this way we will suddenly - over maybe a generation or two, maybe this one, maybe the next? - realize that we are as Carl Sagan put it the stuff of which stars are made, seeing ourselves in the firmament for the first time in our tiny transient lives 😀

Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky is a true scholar.

For the GOOGLE challenged:

In Vernadsky's theory of how the Earth develops, the noosphere is the third in a succession of phases of development of the earth, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the emergence of life fundamentally transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition fundamentally transforms the biosphere. In this theory, the principles of both life and cognition are the essential features of the earth's evolution, and must have been implicit in the earth all along.

I keep hoping for the emergence of human cognition fundamentally right here on our RHP 😛