Talk:Gaia hypothesis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Systems science Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Systems, which collaborates on articles related to Systems science.
Systems rating:	B Class	High importance	Field: Cybernetics
Please update this rating as the article progresses, or if the rating is inaccurate. Please also add comments to suggest improvements to the article.

Contents 1 Gaia's Revenge 2 Deletion of cleanup tag 3 Requested move 3.1 Survey 3.2 Discussion 4 General sloppiness in the article 5 First reference to Gaia? 6 reference desk request for clarification 7 POV 8 Mary Daly The Witch of Boston College 9 Dead link "Keep a positive attitude"? 10 First sentence 11 Nature paper 12 More Gaia in Music 13 Citations? 14 Weasel words 15 Model, not a hypothesis 16 deleted some "cultural references" 17 CBC Radio interview 18 Inline Reference #17 19 Does [sic] or a (word) need to be inserted in this quote? 20 James Lovelock and Nuclear power

[edit] Gaia's Revenge

Unknown author dleted part of the post concerning Lovelock's latest book "Gaia's Revenge". This has been reversed in the absence of either a sihgned change or an explanation in the discussion pages John D. Croft 02:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of cleanup tag

I have reduced the references to daisyword to one, and to Kirchner's thesis to two, and generally had an attempt to cleanup the whole article. Hope this overcomes the difficulties with the theory. Bared upon the insertion of the Amsterdam declaration and the re-write of the initial sections, I have deleted the cleanup tag and the factual tag at the end. I have left the middle tag in place. John D. Croft 11:26, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

aia theory (science) → Gaia hypothesis – I was under the impression the Gaia hypothesis is more generally considered a hypothesis than a theory. I.e. it does not hold enough universial support to be considered a 'scientific truth' and have theory status. That and the opening text refers to it as a hypothesis. References to it as a theory seem to come only from the loose non-scientific linguistic use of the word theory to be equivalent to idea. krebbe 19:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

There definitely needs to be some clean-up on the subject of hypothesis vs. Theory in the article, since they are used interchangably throughout in a most annoying fasion. They are not interchangable words. A hypothesis is a scientific idea that is untested. A theory is a scientific idea that has been tested a number of times and has failed to be proven wrong. Based on these definitions, one phrase or another should be pruned from the article.

I think it should be moved up from hypothesis to theory. The increase in carbon dioxide hasn't brought on the doomesday predictions made in the past. Feedback mechanisms, just what the Gaia Hypothesis hypothesized, is what kept the temperature flat where all other models were wrong.98.165.6.225 (talk) 19:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

For the two comments above, I think according to your criteria neither String theory should be called a theory? Sampo Smolander 17:02, 02 March 2007 (UTC)

The word theory properly applies to an idea that clearly suggests experiments to disprove itself. The Gaia theory does pass this test. The idea that a hypothesis becomes a theory only through repeated testing is valid but only because a hypothesis that no one has yet thought of a way to test must remain a hypothesis. It's all well enough explained now.

[edit] Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Oppose. the original Gaia hypothesis has now made accurate scientific predictions and therefore becomes a theory. But perhaps "model" would be neutral? CharlieT 18 August 06
  • Comment: Even "Gaia hypothesis" might not be absolutely correct as some strong aspects are not testable. "Gaia model" seems an accurate way to describe the movement. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 22:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support I've taken a class taught by Lynn Margulis, who's mentioned in the article, and she always said Gaia hypothesis. Jay32183 19:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support Most common name; this talk page is the first place I've seen it called a theory. Septentrionalis 00:56, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose The Gaia Hypothesis remains a hypothesis until subject to scientific testing. Any hypothesis which survives rigorous testing becomes a theory. The Gaia hypothesis has survived such testing since it was first suggested, and now has been accepted in the Amsterdam statement of "Earth Systems Science". Thus it has earned the name Gaia Theory. One can even go further and suggest that as a number of quite different "Gaia Theories" are currently being tested, a better description would be "Gaia science" John D. Croft 09:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
• Lovelock uses theory, Margulis uses hypothesis, and Lovelock lists tests that have been suggested and carried out. That leans toward theory but use hypothesis for Margulis' more specific conception by all means.

[edit] Discussion

(moved from the previous 'Gaia what' section)

"Gaia theory (science) The Gaia hypothesis, a theory" ok, so... what? theory hypothesis theory? huh? --TheAlphaWolf 19:15, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I have heard it referred to as "hypothesis" more often than "theory", though both are correct. It is a bit weird that the article goes back and forth, but even weirder that it is called "theory" but opens with "the Gaia Hypothesis"... Maybe it should be moved to Gaia Hypothesis. Any thoughts? romarin [talk ] 15:05, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Each form of it is a single hypothesis or postulate, which can be part of a theory; just as Kepler's theory of planetary motion has three of them. Septentrionalis 01:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request.

Ashibaka tock 22:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Archives
January 2006 – January 2006 June 2003 — August 2005

[edit] General sloppiness in the article

I am still unsatisfied with this article despite my attempts to remove the general sloppiness it contains. There seems to be numerous repetitions of James Kirchners critique of Gaia Theory as if that was the be-all and end-all of anti-Gaian criticism, and as if even Strong and Weak Gaian approaches are true. Lawrence Joseph in his "Gaia:The Birth of an Idea" analyses Kirchner's attack at depth and shows how it was an attack against Lovelock's credibility as a scientist (Kirchner made the same claim against Daisyworld as an example of garbage in garbage out. Jon Turney also has also shown that Kirchner's attack was based on Lovelock's early writings, and that Lovelock's own thinking on Gaia had developed significantly since the early 1970s, which Kirchner never acknowledged.

In the critical section there is also no mention of Stephen Jay Gould's influencial criticism of Gaia as merely metaphorical, nor the rebuttal by David Abrahm that reductionistic science is itself based upon the metaphore of a clockwork machine. Darwinian evolution itself is based upon a "natural selecion" analogous to the artificial selection of plant and animal breeders. Others have shown that as our machines become more cybernetic and microbiology discovers organic feedback systems the old organic-mechanical metaphorical split becomes less meaningful.

Lovelock responded to Gould similarly to Abrahm, and that's now mentioned. Add Abrahm's view too if you want.

The article almost totally neglects the growth of interdisciplinary "Earth Systems Science" which owes its origin and its major development to Gaia Theory. The contributions of Thomas Volk and Stephan Harding are not discussed, nor the critique of homeostatic Gaia posed by Snowball Earth.

Earth System Science has very little to do with the Gaia Hypothesis, and the statement towards the end of the introduction that says the Gaia Hypothesis is more commonly referred to Earth System Science needs to be removed. Earth System Science is much broader and much more inclusive than the Gaia Hypothesis. Furthermore, the link to "earth system science" in this article needs to be corrected (i.e. it should not link to "Earth Science"). Tomwithanh 02:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding "Earth System Science", both Stephan Harding in his book "Animate Earth", and James Lovelock in "Gaia's Revenge" consider Earth System Science a form of "intermediate" Gaia (using Kirchner's analogy). Have a look at the Talk given by Sir Crispin Tickell at http://www2.le.ac.uk/ebulletin/features/2000-2009/2006/11/nparticle.2006-11-20.9623961254

John D. Croft 10:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First reference to Gaia?

Lovelock, J. E.; Gaia as seen through the atmosphere, Atmospheric Environment 6 (1972) 579-580.

This is specifically about the oxygen/methane balance. Mention it along side that fact?

[edit] reference desk request for clarification

The following question was left at the ref desk:

At the bottom of the article, there is an abbreviated section titled: "Gaia hypothesis in ecology." Here it is stated that "most ecologists agree to assimilate the biosphere to a super ecosystem...." Could this simply be a minor carelessness at the end of a very wonderful article? Let me voice my doubt by asking a question about the use of the phrase "super ecosystem." In what way does the expression "super ecos

I disagree with the move. This should go back to Gaia theory. The Gaia idea has now made scientific predictions which have proved accurate. Also, the correct term is Earth System Sciencew, not "Systems." This whole article is a mess.

Charlie T.

For someone like me who has never hear of any of this, the article is very informative and I see no "mess".

Greg H

The Gaia <-> mule comparison is plain crap, to put it bluntly. The same criticism could _not_ be levelled against a mule or a post-menupausal woman. If you don't get this, then you haven't understood basic evolutionary theory and I am not going to teach it to you. Hint: the mule has an ancestry that wasn't sterile. Gaia, as far as I know, is not the last in some billions of predecessor global ecosystems.

If the panspermia hypothesis is correct, then Gaia certainly is the last we know of in many predecessors.

§§§§John D. Croft

Claes A

[edit] POV

The article has some POV language in favour of Lovelock and against his critics. I've removed some but not all as I don't have time now (I've added a POV notice in one section). Ben Finn 21:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Sadly there's a lot of plain nonsense stated by otherwise credible scientists, including Gould's bizarre statement. According to Lovelock many have admitted not actually reading his work but instead reacting to the name. Which seems to be correct given the inane statements. What part of oxygen/methane balance or sulfur/iodine transfer between land and sea don't they understand? There's plenty to test.

I'm considering, due to the number of sources by or focusing on Lovelock, changing the introduction to "The Gaia hypothesis is James Lovelock's hypothesis..." Anyone object? If so, please give me a reason. --SpacemanAfrica 00:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Margulis is now considered the leading practitioner but has narrowed the study somewhat towards energy issues.

[edit] Mary Daly The Witch of Boston College

Does this link belong here? Seems a bit sensationalist for an article on an important idea. Added unsigned on 2006-12-13T00:49:32 by 81.178.103.160

PJTraill 01:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC) The linked article also has nothing to do with this article (it contains 'Gaia' in a different sense). I'm removing it. Also the other one to "Gaia: Worshipping the Ground We Walk On" on that site - that article claims "It was from the pulpit of this cathedral in 1979 that James Lovelock first publicly explained the Gaia theory - that the earth as a whole is a living, conscious organism.", but further has no real bearing on it. Lovelock's language has certainly confused people, but he does not impute consciousness to Gaia.

[edit] Dead link "Keep a positive attitude"?

The link Keep a positive attitude does nothing useful (for me). Can anyone improve it or should it be scrapped? PJTraill 01:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First sentence

"The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological theory that proposes that the living matter of planet Earth functions like a single organism." This says nothing about the interaction of living and non-living things in the biosphere that - as I understand it - underpins Gaia. Could someone who has read Lovelock improve the opening sentence in such a way as to take this into account? Regards and thanks, Notreallydavid 03:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

PJTraill 23:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC) I would suggest that that is ample for a first sentence. Any such details should come later, maybe not even in the introduction. As I recall the book the distinction between living and non-living was not so important as far as their roles are concerned, except perhaps in so far as the hypothesis suggests Gaia maintains conditions propitious for life.

[edit] Nature paper

I don't see any evidence of an initial Gaia paper in Nature (and indeed it would have hardly been their sort of thing)  : http://www.nature.com/search/executeSearch?sp-a=sp1001702d&sp-sfvl-field=subject|ujournal&sp-q-min-1=Nature&sp-q-max-1=Nature&sp-q-1=Nature&sp-x-1=ujournal&sp-p-1=phrase&sp-q=*&sp-p=all&sp-q-2=lovelock&sp-x-2=uaui&sp-p-2=all&sp-start-day=01&sp-start-month=01&sp-start-year=1960&sp-end-day=31&sp-end-month=12&sp-end-year=2007&sp-s=pubdate_asc&sp-c=100

I'm removing the claim pending citation. Pleclech 19:41, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

seems like nature's db is a bit messed up, as your search had a start date of 1960, but as you can see here the "oldest" article listed is 1901, clearly not correct, but existing nonetheless: http://www.nature.com/search/executeSearch?sp-q=lovelock&sp-c=10&sp-x-9=cat&sp-s=pubdate_asc&submit=go&sp-a=sp1001702d&sp-sfvl-field=subject%7Cujournal&sp-x-1=ujournal&sp-x-1=ujournal Vena

Thanks for that. The "1901" article may be relatively recent (it looks like 2004) from the journal numbering of "Nature Digest". "A Physical Basis for Life Detection Experiments" Nature 207, 568 - 570 (07 Aug 1965) doesn't seem to mention Gaia. "?Earth system? analysis and the second Copernican revolution" by H. J. Schellnhuber does mention the "romantic companion, Gaia theory, as pioneered by Lovelock and Margulis." Nature C19 - C23 (01 Jan 1970) but it's well-known Gaia had been publicied by then. So I still don't see the "initial Gaia paper in Nature" mentioned in the article. If somebody else can find it, I'm happy to be corrected Pleclech 12:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More Gaia in Music

Just if you want to add this info in the music section:

A swedish metal band, called Tiamat, released an EP in 1995 called "Gaia", which titletrack's lyrics can be interpreted as to planet Earth being sick and healing itself, as if it were a living organism.

(Ref 1: http://darklyrics.com/lyrics/tiamat/gaia.html)

[edit] Citations?

"The theory was then attacked by many mainstream biologists. Championed by certain environmentalists and climate scientists, it was vociferously rejected by many others, both within scientific circles and outside them." ...

Lovelock himself claimed in the 2006 interview that biologists, not climate or earth scientists, came up with most of the objections. That all the fervent opposition came from biologists. That's good enough.

"For instance many attacked his statement in the first paragraph of his first Gaia book (1979), that "the quest for Gaia is an attempt to find the largest living creature on Earth."

Yes but that's a criticism of his book not his theory, and an argument about what is a "creature" or "living". It should be treated separately from the specific balances Gaia describes as a theory.

True or not, don't bold statements like that require some kind of citation(s)? Paulzon 00:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Paulzon

Yes, usually, but a lot of these things were snide attacks that didn't get to print but all parties acknowledge happened.

[edit] Weasel words

I have ammended the offending section and deleted the weasel words template as a result. John D. Croft 04:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Model, not a hypothesis

Considering that life is entirely subjective, Gaia is not a hypothesis. It simply a way of thinking about the world —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.65.7.0 (talk) 17:28, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It's a model or paradigm, not a hypothesis and surely not a theory. Of course, that's the problem: People think it's a theory, and that inevitably leads to teleology.  Randall Bart   Talk  18:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

So, should the article be renamed? --Slartibartfast (1992) 23:34, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

No, what drivel: "life is entirely subjective". That's wrong. Biology has a definition. Chemistry has a definition. Scientific theories about life and its objective basis do exist. That's what the hypothesis/theory is about. There are other implications but that's only implications, not the theory.

There are no objective definitions of live (coming form a biochemist). Hence, life is entirely subjective. I entirely agree with the original poster. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.21.28 (talk) 16:15, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Lovelock has disavowed teleological interpretations and embraced those from non-linear dynamics, of which there are plenty. If you don't understand how feedback loops work, mathematically, then you really have no business trying to discuss what constitutes a valid theory of life forms or planets that support them. Sorry if that's elitist but this particular theory does require that kind of math to see as a theory rather than a model.

[edit] deleted some "cultural references"

This article is on Lovelock's "Gaia Hypothesis". However, the "cultural references" section was crammed with all sorts of "references" that weren't specifically related to Gaia Hypothesis, but instead were referring to things like:

• Goddesses named Gaia;
• goddesses who embody the existence of a planet;
• planets who are sentient.

I have deleted those references, as they have nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of this article. Any "cultural references" that do have something to do with James Lovelock or his specific hypothesis, though, I left. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 21:06, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Good move. They could remain as bad examples of teleology, but who needs that?

[edit] CBC Radio interview

This article is not using the rigorous citation form. The most recent two edits both included quotes from Lovelock and facts and claims from the 2006 CBC Radio "Ideas" program interview (an episode of the How to think about science series). Someone who knows how a radio interview should be cited can fix up those quotes. They are NOT "citation needed" in the sense of lacking a source, they're citation needed in the sense of not knowing how to make a proper citation of a radio interview.

Lovelock clarified a lot of things in the interview and I highly recommend it to anyone who is intending to make major changes to this article. It should be pretty much mandatory I think.

Do you have a link to this interview? I wouldn't mind checking it out. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inline Reference #17

There's something wrong with it; please fix it because I don't know how. Thanks.Asrghasrhiojadrhr (talk) 08:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Does [sic] or a (word) need to be inserted in this quote?

Actual quote: "It would be hubris to think humans as they now are God's chosen race."

Does this mean: It would be hubris to think humans as they now (exist) are God's chosen race."

Or: It would be hubris to think humans as they now are (, are) God's chosen race."

Also, why did he say "race" instead of "species"? Doug Youvan (talk) 22:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] James Lovelock and Nuclear power

Has anyone heard how Lovelock has jumped on the nuclear power bandwagon? It's crazy to think about someone supporting the gaia hypothesis and nuclear power, don't you think nuclear power would be like a cancerous growth on the gaia 'organism'?GeeDomsta333 (talk) 04:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

It's clear leftist environmentalists cannot even comprehend the Gaia Hypothesis, but they turn it into a pagan god. How embarrassing.98.165.6.225 (talk) 19:02, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

James Lovelock has always been ambivalent about Gaia and nuclear power - for example his discussion on the Okla reactor in Gabon in "Ages of Gaia". Recently in the "Revenge of Gaia" he shows that we are fast arriving at the point of positive feedbacks in the Gaia System that will greatly threaten the chance of civilisation surviving at all. He sees nuclear power as the only real way of deferring the collapse. In this he is to be commended for trying to prevent the collapse of civilisation and the suffering it would entail, but he is suggesting a cure that is worse than the disease, and would probably only hasten the collapse anyway. John D. Croft (talk) 07:15, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

He hasn't "jumped on the nuclear bandwagon". At least, not recently. He discusses nuclear power in his 1989 book Ages of Gaia, and expresses more or less the same views then as he does now. If there is a change, it's that he now appears to view the scale of our changes to the Earth more seriously and that they require a fast transition away from carbon dioxide producing technologies. His view is that, as far as the biosphere (= Gaia, in his terms) is concerned, nuclear power is simply not a serious threat. The quote in the article at present relates to this, but he goes on in the book to compare the risk of cancer from nuclear accidents to the risk of cancer from exposure to oxygen (i.e. breathing). His argument is that a perceived risk from, say, nuclear energy, should be compared to everyday risk. As a jobbing scientist, I can't disagree with this. Individually, we might be concerned about an increased cancer risk from nuclear power, but the risks are small, and the biosphere (which, we shouldn't forget, we're hammering to pieces at the moment) really couldn't care less. Your mileage may vary, of course. Cheers, --Plumbago (talk) 09:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. By the "quote in the article" I meant the quote in the James Lovelock article. Oops.

A 'lesser of two evils case'? key is, where to store nuclear power after it's been used! Or can we clean it up? nuclear power plants take many years to start running, there has to be a safe, sustainable way...unless one believes in this 'clean coal' talk...Anyways, I think Chernobyl scarred nuclear power forever, whether we acknowledge that it was a faulty system or not...Domsta333 (talk) 10:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, we're getting off topic here. Rightly or wrongly, Lovelock is a supporter of nuclear power, but has been a long-standing one rather than a recent convert. Just in passing ... on the subject of nuclear waste, Lovelock has suggested [*] that he'd be happy to use some to heat his home since, once it's (heavily) encased in glass, its radioactivity is decreased and it acts as a source of heat. Cheers, --Plumbago (talk) 07:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[*] I can't remember where, it might have been a newspaper interview.