Gaia Hypothesis Describes a Self-Regulating Plan
Theory Describes Climate and Biogeochemical Maintaining Biosphere
Nov 27, 2008
The theory postulates that all living things interact in a complex network like a “super-organism”, exerting a regulatory effect on the Earth’s environment that promotes life overall. First formulated in the 1960s during his work for NASA on methods of detecting life on Mars, James Lovelock named this self-regulating living system after the Greek goddess, using the suggestion of novelist William Golding, who lived in the same village as Lovelock at the time. Both its appeal and its failing is its frequent consideration by many as viewing the Earth as a single organism. In a 1965 article entitled "A physical basis for life detection experiments" in Nature 207 (7): 568-570, Lovelock described the phenomenon as “a complex entity…constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.”
Lovelock published the Gaia Hypothesis along with co-author Lynn Margulis in the 1974 paper, entitled "Atmospheric homeostasis by and for the biosphere -The Gaia hypothesis" in Tellus 26 (1): 2–10. Initially ignored by scientists, the theory attracted criticism for being teleological, by implying that planetary self-regulation was purposeful.
Different forms of the hypothesis exist, from "weak" to "strong." The weak model proposes that biota substantially influence certain aspects of the abiotic world, such as temperature and the composition of the atmosphere. The strong model argues that just as the biota influence their abiotic environment, so the environment influences the evolution of the biota by exerting Darwinian selection pressures through a series of negative feedback loops in a way that is fundamentally stabilizing.
Evolution as the result of “cooperative not competitive processes” forms an integral part of the theory, and one that mirrors Margulis’s research into the cooperative nature of endosymbiosis (the phenomenon of one organism residing within—and co-evolving with—another organism, usually to the benefit of both).
In her 1998 book, The Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London), Margulis contended that Gaia was “not an organism,” but “an emergent property of interaction among organisms". She defined Gaia as a series of “interacting ecosystems that compose a single huge ecosystem at the Earth's surface. Period." However, she also argued that “the surface of the planet behaves as a physiological system in certain limited ways” and the earth’s surface is “best regarded as alive.”
Despite its current support, the theory remains controversial within the scientific community. Evolutionist Richard Dawkins rejected the possibility of feedback loops. In his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker (Longmans, London), Dawkins asserted, “There was no way for evolution by natural selection to lead to altruism on a Global scale.”
