GAIA HYPOTHESIS.ppt

GAIA HYPOTHESIS the idea of the Earth as a single living superorganism James Lovelock Gaia - a new look at life on Earth, Oxford University Press, 1979. Genesis of Lovelock’s hypothesis Together with scientist Dian Hitchcock, Lovelock examined the atmospheric data for the Martian atmosphere in the late 1960’s and found it to be in a state of stable chemical equilibrium the Earth was shown to be in a state of extreme chemical disequilibrium. The two scientists concluded that Mars was probably lifeless; almost a decade later the Viking 1 and 2 landings confirmed their conclusion. Main idea In that same year, Lovelock began to think that such an unlikely combination of gases such as the Earth had, indicated a homeostatic control of the Earth biosphere to maintain environmental conditions conducive for life, in a sort of cybernetic feedback loop, an active (but non-teleological) control system. Example: ATMOSPHERE Life, or the biosphere, regulates or maintains the climate and the atmospheric composition at an optimum for itself.“ Loveland states that our atmosphere can be considered to be “like the fur of a cat and shell of a snail, not living but made by living cells so as to protect them against the environment. Inherent in this explanation is the idea that biosphere, the atmosphere, the lithosphere and the hydrosphere are in some kind of balance -- that they maintain a homeostatic condition. This homeostasis is much like the internal maintenance of our own bodies; processes within our body insure a constant temperature, blood pH, electrochemical balance, etc. The inner workings of Gaia, therefore, can be viewed as a study of the physiology of the Earth, where the oceans and rivers are the Earths blood, the atmosphere is the Earths lungs, the land is the Earths bones, and the living organisms are the Earths senses. Lovelock calls this the science of geophysiology - the physiology of the Earth (or any other planet). Genesis of name As the story goes, while on a wal