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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Untitled

From the article:

that the Earth's biosphere tends to [homeorhic balances]?

Really?

See:

Now I can't find this phrase on the Web, or even Usenet, please tell me where this term is used. Perhaps it is a new scientific term? Please provice cites.

The Anome

Apologies: typo. The term is homeorheic - will fix

Good use of sources, 24. Thank you. User:Ed Poor

Perhaps you meant to say homeorhetic? The Anome ---

Yup, I had a typo of a typo. Whee. OK, this is almost right now. Thanks for hte patience.


as far as I understood, "Gaia Theory" is Margulis's version among several Gaia theories. Hence "Margulis's version of Gaia Theory" is redundant. user:anthere

  • Since general "Gaia theories"/"Gaia theory" (note lowercase t) are already mentioned earlier (i.e. non-Margulis "Gaia theories"), I don't think that it is necessarily clear that to a reader (since it's easy to miss noticing the capital "T") that it's Margulis' version that we are talking about. In fact, I think the whole article would be better renamed to "Gaia Theory (Lynn Margulis)" so that it is immediately clear from the article title that we are talking about her "Gaia Theory" as opposed to somebody else's "Gaia theory", or rename "Gaia theory" to something else. Having two pages with only a capitalization difference can easily lead to confusion. Lexor 21:32 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

Anthere, it appears that we are chasing our tails with editing this page. I was trying to move the page to the correct spelling of homeorhetic rather than homeorhic, but I inadvertantly created the redirect page back to the Lynn Margulis version, before I noticed that you had moved that! Sorry about that. This meant I couldn't move the page, but had to manually cut/paste. I think that "(homeorhic)" should link to "(homeorhetic)" not the other way around. I didn't realize we were editing the same page, so sorry about the confusion -- Lexor 02:37 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)

sorry :-(

What the heck does "homeorhic" mean? There is no reason to redirect this page to a parenthetically disambiguated term. Keep it simple. --mav

  • Actually it was a misspelling of homeorhetic. I believe that people wanted to disambiguate the general term "Gaia theory" from the specific term "Gaia Theory", some people wanted "Gaia Theory" to be a redirect to "Gaia theory". I'm confused as to where things stand right now, as I was just trying to fix the spelling mistake moving the page to "Gaia Theory (homeorhetic)" -- Lexor 03:11 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)

It is confusing and misleading to have three sepaarte pages on the Gaia idea. We should combine them into one. (And of course, maintain the distinction between the general concept, and different scientist's specific formulations of the concept.) I plan on doing this myself; any objections? RK 23:19 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

absolutely. I *strongly* object. User:anthere

Um, why do you insist on having three separately titled pages for the same topic, with almost identical names? I do not understand. Would you then agree that we could one article titled "Gaia theory", and rename the other two something like "Gaia (Lovelock version)" and "Gaia (Margulis version)" RK 15:07 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Agreed, at the very least they should have more distinct names. Theory with a capital "T" just doesn't set this page much apart from Gaia theory. Is there a particular reason you object to merging them into a single article, with separate sections for the various theories? It's particularly ridiculous that Gaia hypothesis begins with the sentence "The Gaea hypothesis is the theory..." Other theories tend to get a single-article overview. See, for example, Theory of evolution or Fundamental theorem of calculus. If one article suffices for those, it should certainly suffice for Gaia theory. -- Wapcaplet 15:30 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
imho, the Theory of evolution is awfully short and unsufficient. And, if you look carefully, it leads to a series of secondary articles dealing with some of the theories, just as Gaia is doing.

I insist the three pages be separated for the sake of clarity. Though based on the same *initial* theory, the Theory and the Hypothesis diverge quite a lot. It is much clearer to keep different concepts, different formulations from different people at different times on different pages. There is no "one" gaia idea as you indicate, there are several. Putting them together would just bring unnecessary confusion. No, after reflecting, I do not agree with the renaming you propose. It is no good to name a theory by the name of someone. Fist because, an alive author can change her mind later on, and years later propose another theory. This would not invalidate the existance of the first theory, but invalidate the fact the initial inventor does not agree with the theory anymore. Second, because even if the bases of a theory are developped by a first person, it can be lead much further by a second author who might ultimately bring even more to the theory than the initial author. Then, why would the theory be named by the first author ? Look at Theory of evolution for support. Would you support Evolution (Darwin version), Evolution (Lamarck version) ? No, because, there are many evolutionary theories, most being compatibles with the others. And finally, because, these theories and hypothesis are not known under the Margulis Theory or the Lovelock Theory, but under the Gaia Theory and Gaia Hypothesis. If only for this point, it makes sense to identify articles topics under the name by which they are called.

Keeping these pages does not improve clarity. In fact, your actions are obfuscating the issues.
Which actions ? Talking on a talk page ? Ant
And I don't think anyone here is stating that we should unilaterally name a theory after someone.
who is anyone ? Please, cite names here. Who has been saying anything except you and Wapcaplet ? Ant
Rather, you are saying that different people have totally different conceptions of Gaia,
no. The articles are saying that. Obviously. Ant
and you insist on keeping them as separate articles.
well, you insist on reunited them. So what ? Ant
Therefore, we must give these articles names that represent their content.
Therefore, in fact, adding homeorhesis would represent their content more than saying Margulis really. Ant
Right now their names are misleading, and confusing. Your proposed names, however, make things even worse. Most people don't even know what those words mean!
I am ready to admit most people would not understand these words. However, when you state people are confused, I read "you" are confused. Could you precise who is confused ? Ant
We need to use names that people already use, that people will be likely to seach for. BTW, you are mistaken when you say that these names are not known as Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis and Margulis' Gaia hypothesis. While phrased in different ways, they certainly are referred to in this way, including in many college and high school textbooks! RK 19:39 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
many...that is quite a good reference. Margulis work is not about an Hypothesis, it is a Theory. Ant
Most science textbooks disagree with the way that Anthere is trying to organize this information. Most science textbooks discuss the Gaia issue by having just one section (usually titled "Gaia hypothesis" followed by a breakdown of how different people view this issue. It seems to me that the consensus of contributors here is that it is valid to combine these articles into one page, and only one person is dead set against it. RK 19:39 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
three contributors are speaking here. I am for keeping them apart. Wapcaplet said I'm not objecting so much to the separation of Gaia theories into three articles as I am to the naming scheme. You said I will reunite them. This is not precisely what I would call a consensus among contributors. Ant


Most science textbooks disagree with the way that Anthere is trying to organize this information. Most science textbooks discuss the Gaia issue by having just one section (usually titled "Gaia hypothesis" followed by a breakdown of how different people view this issue. It seems to me that the consensus of contributors here is that it is valid to combine these articles into one page, and only one person is dead set against it. RK 19:39 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Hoom. Not to be hasty, but, "science textbooks" are not the last word here. The general idea of a Gaia theory goes back a long way and includes some very early spiritual and cognitive views. Johannes Kepler, Lewis Thomas and Buckminster Fuller, Teilhard de Chardin, Lee Smolin, for instance had very specific ideas of what it meant for a biosphere to be like organism, or part of a whole universe that was like one, or for us to live inside either (biosphere or universe). There is overlap with politics, with cosmology (via Anthropic Principle) and theology. Western biology and ecology as now understood do not "own" the concept of "Gaia" or a "theory" about it. It would be scientism to claim that they do. EofT
The danger is that the merged article will then lose all this context and be censored down strictly to the issues Lynn Margulis and other scientific ecologists talk about. At the very least, one must be clear about "gaia theory in cosmology", "gaia theory in politics", "gaia theory in economics", "gaia theory in ecology", "gaia theory in biology", "gaia theory as propaganda". It is really hard also to separate this from similar issues in evolution - maybe a revisiting of all those articles is also required, as there seems to be no gaia theory that is not ultimately talking about evolutionary concepts. In particular Teilhard de Chardin laid out the idea of molecules cooperating to form life, up to them forming complex organisms like us viewing the whole biosphere (ecology) and whole universe (cosmology), as a single evolutionary process. That is the only way to introduce a truly general article, but it would seem to endorse de Chardin's view, so, at least two articles one on the Gaia theory in biology in particular, and one on Gaia theory in general, might be advisable. That keeps science criteria separate from those others. Hm? EofT

I suggested some time ago for clarity some were asking for, that the names be changed by adding (homeorhesis) and (homeostasis) at the end of current names, for these are *precisely* the differences between both. This was focusing on the differences between the theories (permanent difference), rather than focusing on the initial authors (temporary difference). I think putting the three articles all together will be *very* confusing at best.

Adding (homeorhesis) and (homeostasis) at the end would be excellent. I have no particular concern about whether the articles are named after their initial authors, since as you suggest, the theories may change dramatically over time. As for Theory of evolution being insufficient - this is because most of evolution is not theory, but science and fact, hence the majority of it is expounded at evolution.
Some time ago, following disagreement on other articles, little fat budda tried to merge all these articles together. He stated it was not proper that capitalization be kept in titles. Hence that Gaia theory and Gaia Theory could not be kept. I then moved the titles to names such as Gaia Theory (homeorhetic). My move was immediately and with no discussion deleted by Maverick, for two reasons as I understood : first he did not know what homeorhetic meant and second he thought these articles did not need any disambigation. There is little a non-sysop can do when a sysop decide the new title proposed is not good and just delete it with no further discussion. However, since Little Budda dropped the case, I was glad the titles stayed as they have been for more than a year. I fear should these pages be renamed, the new name will probably be deleted again. But I appreciate you agree with them :-).
Additionally, as you point out, there are many different theories of evolution - and yet we don't see Theory of evolution, Theory of Evolution, Theory Of EVOlution, Th30Ry of 3Vo1uT1on etc., they are all brought together under the banner of Theory of evolution, with articles on closely related theories having more appropriately named articles, such as Natural selection. I'm not objecting so much to the separation of Gaia theories into three articles as I am to the naming scheme. -- Wapcaplet 18:22 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I understand. What do you suggest then ? The point is it would also be okay to me to rename Gaia theory -> Gaia theories as precisely there are several. But you would probably insist again on naming conventions :-). The fact is it is easier in Theory of evolution, as the children articles have proper names, such as Natural selection. Problem is, this "natural selection" is precisely the terminology used outside of wikipedia. that is the real term. In this case, the real term is Gaia Theory, so why would we rename a theory known under that name to an unknown name, just because of some naming conventions ?
You may also want to look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization). -- Wapcaplet
of course. My first contribution to Wikipedia was in march or april 2002. More than a year ago. I also set a good deal of french conventions. However, I think a convention is ...a convention...not a rule :-). look, convention for some animal species is indeed that capitalization can be used on the second word. And sometimes, plural titles are accepted just as well. So, why not renaming theory in theories perhaps ?
I'm familiar with the use of Theorem (capital T) in some areas, particularly in mathematics; when a generalized theory (hypothesis) becomes formalized and proven, it is often capitalized: Theorem of calculus, Four-Color Theorem, etc., but typically these two things are distinguished between theory (the model used for studying something) and Theorem, which is something which can be proven, given a set of axioms. On Wikipedia, most of the mathematical articles seem to use a lowercase "t" on these.
All of this is just my observation, though. I suppose what I am curious about is how, exactly, Gaia Theory is distinct from Gaia theory. Reading some other articles on the web (such as this and this), I get the impression that "theory" and "Theory" are interchangable. According to the articles we have now on Wikipedia, Margulis' Theory says that the earth is homeorhetic, rather than homeostatic, but aside from that I don't really understand what the difference is. I'd be gracious if you could give me some other sources that discuss how the Gaia hypothesis (or Gaea hypothesis) and Gaia Theory are distinct from Gaia theory as a whole, or which indicate that the capital T is of significance in the branch of theory begun by Margulis. I must admit I know very little about the field.
As Entmoot explained rightly so, the theory (right now, the small t) is in reality a set of theories on the topic, some of these having quite ancient roots. It is not one concept but a collection of views from very different people of different cultures. Last century, Lovelock and Margulis worked in the light of recent (at that time) knowledge acquired and set an Hypothesis, which is then one of the multiple theories. They set that Hypothesis with observations (Lovelock was a chemist, so it was a lot about the evolution of the atmosphere, such as the fact the composition of the atmosphere has been staying stable for a ages, in spite of volcanic activity, and mostly life drastic evolution). Lovelock propose James Lovelock's proposal that the Earth's climate is homeostasis. In other words, there are self regulating mechanisms which insure its stability.
Margulis, a biologist, (look endosymbiosis), further worked on the topic. She proposed that the climate was not really homeostatic, but homeorhetic (in short, in the long term, the composition of the atmosphere and hydrosphere was stable, but in the short term, the composition is oscillating between set points). This claim is generally considered much more acceptable than Lovelock one. ant
Okay, I get that. I'm fuzzy on what makes Margulis' Gaia Theory (big T) special enough, above and beyond the spectrum of other theories, to warrant its own article. I understand that her claim is generally more acceptable than Lovelock's; is it more acceptable than the other theories, as well? (boy this talk page is getting messy... too many conversations happening at once :)
And to RK - maybe we should try to resolve things here before we start changing the articles. I don't think we have anything near consensus, yet. -- Wapcaplet 20:38 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
As for using "theories" - this would also go against naming conventions, since nearly every other article on other theories is just at "XXX theory", so I don't see how it's really any better than what we have. -- Wapcaplet 19:50 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)0
You are correct. It is bizarre and untenable to have a Gaia theory (lowercase t) and Gaia Theory (uppercase T) article. No scientists use this terminology, zero, zip. I cannot understand why this set of articles is so fucked up. RK 20:16 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Gaia hypothesis/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

The opening paragraph of this article states "Originally referred to as the earth feedback hypothesis it was renamed after the advice from his neighbour William Golding to the Gaia Hypothesis" but has no mention of James Lovelock - so the sentence in question makes no sense!

I am not sure how to edit the opening para (can't see and "edit" link)....?

TetsuoTheRob (talk) 23:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The recent page has been updated to incorporate the suggestions.

Sushant Kumar 15:03, 11 October 2011 (IST)

Should the category of the article now be upgraded to B Class?

John D. Croft (talk) 20:07, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Last edited at 20:07, 10 May 2012 (UTC). Substituted at 20:35, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Cleaning the 'See also' section

I have deleted a bunch of links that had a dubious relation to this article, and were more related to the Gaia movement, philosophy, etc. A couple of them were already referenced in the text several times. Less is more and there is still 12 of them. I believe the whole page will benefit from a bit of focus.--Qgil (talk) 05:52, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Updating first paragraph (and perhaps the rest of the article)

So I decided to go ahead and start rewriting the first paragraph, focusing on clarity, the basic definition of the hypothesis, the main authors, and the closest scientific fields that are working with this hypothesis. I also referenced the Gaia philosophy and movement articles (that are also in dubious shape) in an attempt to draw a clear line and drive away whoever is interested in the philosophic and religious aspects. If nobody objects I will continue cleaning the article. Full disclaimer: I'm not an expert, just a hobbyist willing to learn more about the topic.--Qgil (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The sections have been reshuffled without touching (yet) any content in them. I'm getting as an inspiration for a clean structure pages like String theory that follow more or less this schema: exposition of the hypothesis and its context - experiments/pro - critique/against - history - references. Now there are many sections mixing pro-against, there is a lot of duplicity and a full sense of useless disorder. I will try to go section by section, cleaning and concentrating similar stuff under the same sections. In the meantime it may occur that the article is even more messy than before but I hope it won't take long and you can always help as well  :) --Qgil (talk) 19:14, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I have started rewriting the Overview. The original text insisted in quoting Lovelock and reflecting his original opinions. With a bit of adaptation and update, now the text explain what (hopefully) is a reflection not only of Lovelock but whoever else is working in this field. I will continue creating subsections about each of the main phenomena investigated: temperature, oxygen and salinity, pointing to the articles where each of these cases is explained in depth.--Qgil (talk) 07:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The Overview is now divided in different subsections for each of the remarkable phenomena that the theory uses to demonstrate the relevance of organisms in geological processes essential for the habitability of the planet. The idea is to summarize each phenomena and link to the relevant articles where such phenomena are explained in detail. Next in my ToDo.--Qgil (talk) 01:31, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

This article & Geophysiology

There is some overlapping between this article and Geophysiology. Basically, it seems that what initially emerged as the "Gaia hypothesis" consolidated into different trends (as explained in the 'Range of views' section) and also inspired other trends out of the scientist academia like the Gaia Movement and the Gaia philosophy, all cited in the article. Geophysiology is the study of interaction among living organisms on the Earth operating under the Gaia hypothesis. So what about considering Geophysiology as a main article for the current scientific view of the Gaia hypothesis? Here we could concentrate on the original hypothesis formulated, its evolution into different trends, the main authors postulating and criticizing. I'm happy putting some time on this page as a pet WP hobby.--Qgil (talk) 19:42, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

In fact I was wrong, and there are differences between the Gaia theory and Geophysiology, even if both have a lot of overlapping. I'm reading more about this before doing changes to the article.--Qgil (talk) 05:09, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
In fact, I was wrong again.  :) In The Vanishing Face of Gaia, the own Lovelock writes: "Geophysiology, the discipline of Gaia theory, had its origins in the 1960s Gaia hypothesis. Summary edited accordingly.--Qgil (talk) 05:30, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

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)

I have moved part of that section to James_Lovelock#Climate_and_mass_human_mortality since they were digressing from the Gaia hypothesis itself, but could be still interesting in the context of Lovelock's future predictions.--Qgil (talk) 05:22, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, the more I look at the article the less I see the point of this section about "The Revenge of Gaia". It is about Lovelock's personal predictions about the future, a topic that is already covered at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock#Climate_and_mass_human_mortality and it doesn't contest or add to the Gaia hypothesis itself. A sentence somewhere linking to the section in Lovelock's article would be enough imho. This would help cleaning the pages and keeping the focus.--Qgil (talk) 18:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Since there were no objections, I have left just a basic mention in "Regulation of the global surface temperature" and I have moved the whole paragraph to James_Lovelock#The_revenge_of_Gaia.--Qgil (talk) 06:28, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Integrating "Gaia hypothesis in ecology"

Gaia_hypothesis#Gaia_hypothesis_in_ecology contains a lot of redundancy and looks to me good food for the somewhat lacking article Earth system science. Any objections to clean/move? --Qgil (talk) 00:42, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Done--Qgil (talk) 15:09, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Hypothesis vs Theory, revisited

This is a topic that has been discussed above, some years back. I'm not in a hurry on this but I though it was useful to notice that the own James Lovelock gives an explanation on his book The vanishing face of Gaia (2009) that is different from anything discussed here. At the end of the book there is a summary where one can read:

GAIA HYPOTHESIS. James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis postulated in the early 1970s that life on Earth activly keeps the surface conditions always favorable for whatever is the contemporary ensemble of organisms. When introduced, this hypothesis was contrary to the conventional wisdom that life adapted to planetary conditions as it and they evolved in their separate ways. We now know that the hypothesis as originally stated was wrong because it is not life alon but the whole Earth system that does the regulating. The hypothesis evolved into what is now Gaia theory.

GAIA THEORY. A view of the Earth introduced in the 1980s that sees it as a self-regulating system made up from the totality of organisms, the surface rocks, the ocean and the atmosphere tightly coupled as an evolving system. The theory sees this system as having a goal - the regulation of surface conditions so as always to be as favorable for contemporary life as possible. It is based on observations and theoretical models; it is fruitful and has made ten successful predictions.

The book refers to a collection of scientific observations and predictions, and mentions the different recognitions the Gaia thory has received from scientific organizations in the last years - many of them after the discussions held here. I will update the information in the article as I progress reading the book. Once the article is updated and in good shape I'll go back to this discussion over the default title of the article, if needed. I thought it was good to share now just in case someone has good knowledge and/or strong opinions.--Qgil (talk) 05:01, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm reading another book where the difference between the original Gaia hypothesis and the current Gaia theory is also stressed. I have created a new section to explain this: Gaia_hypothesis#From_hypothesis_to_theory.--Qgil (talk) 16:42, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Split apart

The article is huge (as is this discussion page). I've added the template split-apart and propose it be split into smaller articles referent to each topic ("History of the Gaia theory", "Weak and strong Gaia theories", etc.). I believe most top-level topics are detailed enough to be stand-alone articles. 189.61.242.178 (talk) 21:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I believe that "Critical analysis" and "History" could get sub-articles created right away. About the rest, there is still a lot of cleaning to do. For instance, the "Weak and strong Gaia theories" might well be the analysis done by a single person, since these terms seem not be used by the scientists actually working in connection with the Gaia theory. I'm doing more reading before proposing anything, though.--Qgil (talk) 05:51, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
About the long Discussion page, I also agree. Does someone know how to archive the old discussions until, say, Talk:Gaia hypothesis/Archive 1#Error (March 2010)? --Qgil (talk) 06:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
/Archive 1 created.--Qgil (talk) 15:44, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Until there is more to put into such articles we would only be creating stubs. For the moment I am against it, and for that reason I am deleting the "split" line on the front page. Is that OK? John D. Croft (talk) 12:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
I also prefer to concentrate first in the cleaning of the article (as requested a year ago). Once we have gone through it we can consider whether more splits are needed. In fact we have got already entire paragraphs being moved to other aerticles as a result of the clean-up.--Qgil (talk) 17:10, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Critical analysis + Range of views

The sections "Critical analysis" + "Range of views" contain a lot of redundancy and disorder. At the end they try to address Criticism and the different replies from the Gaia scientists. It would be more useful to have them organized by the hottest topics: the concept of a living Earth, the role of Gaia in evolution and natural selection, the name of Gaia itself...--Qgil (talk) 15:22, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's summarize here the points being criticized:

  • The name of Gaia for a scientific theory, leading to plenty of non-scientific and New Age connections.
  • The Earth as a living superorganism.
  • The capacity of a myriad of organisms to get organized and coordinated with inorganic processes to self-regulate.
  • The "teleologic" aspect.
  • The fact that geochemistry with little or no co-evolution with living beings is enough to explain the geological phenomena the Gaia theory mentions.

We also need to explain that all these were hot topics in the 60s & 70s, but Daisyworld and further research coming from the consolidation of holistic disciplines like Earth System Science have calmed the original debate quite a lot. The questions open (now and probably forever) are philosophical (e.g. is the Earth really a single living being and we are part of it?) and correspond to Gaia philosophy. Now Lovelock and other may still argue about institutional global warming predicitions not taking enough into account aspects of Gaia theory like the sudden effects of positive feedback, but this belongs to a specific debate on climate change that involves many other aspects beyond the Gaia theory.

If you agree on all this I will proceed consequently.--Qgil (talk) 17:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems that this "Strong Gaia vs Weak Gaia" thing comes as a result of a single PhD thesis, see this. I haven't seen it referenced anywhere else except in pages mentioning either that thesis work or this Wikipedia article. That sections contains a lot of redundancy. I'm happy keeping the mention to the Weak/Strong concept pointing to that thesis available online, moving whatever unique to the corresponding sections in the article and delete the rest.--Qgil (talk) 17:24, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Qgil you may be interested in Stephan Harding's book Animate Earth. Stephan addresses many of the so-called weaknesses of the Gaia Hypothesis there, especially the claim that geochemistry can explain gaia in the absence of the Gaia Hypothesis. Regarrding Strong and Weak Gaia, I think Jon Turney mentions it too. Thanks for your work again John D. Croft (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

It is the book I am reading these days. :) --Qgil (talk) 21:17, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Request to protect the page

I think the page should be semi-protected, to autoconfermed users, to prevent vandalism. --71.31.247.179 (talk) 05:55, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

A request at WP:RFPP would not be successful because there has not been much disruption lately. If you are aware of any bad text in the article, please fix it or mention it here. Johnuniq (talk) 06:31, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

The cleanup of the article

Thank you Qgil for your fantastic work cleaning up the article. I deleted a small section that I found to be repetitive, but apart from that I am very pleased with the direction you have taken. I wonder about including a photograph of James lovelock in the text? What do you think? John D. Croft (talk) 19:58, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback and your help. Having a picture of Lovelock is a good idea, and I would add ome from Margulis too. What do you think?--Qgil (talk) 03:40, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes excellent. I'll see if I can find them. John D. Croft (talk) 08:14, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Done. John D. Croft (talk) 12:19, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Expanded the paleoclimatology section and removed the label requestinbg expansion.John D. Croft (talk) 17:55, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

The work you have both been doing shows WP editing at its best - an intelligent approach to a controversial topic and useful tidying of a long, intricate and, in some places, still poorly organised article.93.96.233.235 (talk) 04:25, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Recent news

UMD Finding May Hold Key to Gaia Theory of Earth as Living Organism is there anyway we could get this on the article?

"Is Earth really a sort of giant living organism as the Gaia hypothesis predicts? A new discovery made at the University of Maryland may provide a key to answering this question. This key of sulfur could allow scientists to unlock heretofore hidden interactions between ocean organisms, atmosphere, and land -- interactions that might provide evidence supporting this famous theory."

Sulfur Finding May Hold Key to Gaia Theory of Earth as Living Organism GreenUniverse (talk) 14:48, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

User:GreenUniverse has been blocked as a sock of banned User:BookWorm44. - SummerPhD (talk) 04:30, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

FTN

Just a note that I brought this article up at WP:FTN. Arc de Ciel (talk) 05:18, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Deleted original research

The link to the "Omega Gaia" is an occult/metaphysics not a science website. Also Teilhard Chardin did not propose the Gaia hypothesis and neither did Oliver Reiser so they have been removed. 86.153.42.156 (talk) 15:31, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Teilhard de Chardin did make use of Vernadsky's "Biosphere" hypothesis, via Henri Bergson, which has been acknowledged as a parallel to Gaia Theory.John D. Croft (talk) 13:04, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Attempt to fix weaknesses in the article

I have added citations where citations needed existed before. There is still weaknesses as Kirchner gets mentioned twice, and this needs correction, as it is repetitive. I invite anyone else to have a go. I have been trying to find who added the "tone" criticism in April 2010, as I would like to find what their criticisms were. It doesn't show in the talk pages. John D. Croft (talk) 17:40, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks John! I am also working these days in improving this article - see the comments just above. The article is definitely messy and with many repetitions, and this is why I'm going from top to down, step by step as I find the time. Next comes Gaia hypothesis#Regulation of the global surface temperature, where I plan to include the mention to Daisyworld and move all the rest to the Daisyworld main article. I'm fine having that banner until we are done with the cleaning. Then we can request revision from The Powers That Be, and perhaps we can get a better quote than the Cs above.  :) --Qgil (talk) 20:32, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
John, thanks again for all these edits and citations. Very much needed! I see that you have expanded the section "The Revenge of Gaia". In fact I'm proposing to remove it completely, see my comments at #Gaia's Revenge. Looking forward to your feedback!--Qgil (talk) 20:39, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Qgil for your edits to the article. I feel we could go for an improvement in the quality (It is now definitely better than C class). What do you all think? John D. Croft (talk) 13:00, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Strong disagreement until the rest of the fringe/pseudoscience issues are resolved (especially the lack of demarcation between these and the actual science). I will hopefully get some time to work on that soon. Arc de Ciel (talk) 04:25, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Arc du Ciel - which fringe/pseudoscience are you referring to? I cannnot see much in the article as it stands that could be called pseudoscience. John D. Croft (talk) 07:03, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Please see the FTN post linked below. :-) Arc de Ciel (talk) 19:41, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Latest edit by Arc de Ciel

The Cryogenian period of "Snowball Earth" does show biogeophysiological processes at work as advocated by James Lovelock. Photosynthesis drew down CO2 to levels that cooled the Earth prematurely, but volcanism returned CO2 to the atmosphere, melting the glaciers. Under extreme CO2 radiative forcing (greenhouse effect), built up over millions of years because CO2 consumption by silicate weathering is slowed by the cold, while volcanic and metamorphic CO2 emissions continue unabated. Thus the geochemical carbon cycle is a key step in the cycle is the conversion of CO2 (as carbonic acid rain) into Ca2+ and HCO3- (bicarbonate) ions through the breakdown ("weathering") of common silicate rocks like basalt. Silicate rock weathering consumes CO2 through chemical reactions that are temperature and moisture dependent. If global temperatures warm, weathering rate goes up as does the consumption of CO2. Conversely, if global climate gets colder, weathering rate goes down as does the consumption of CO2. The temperature dependence acts as a brake, or self-stabilizing mechanism, on the climate system. So I have reversed your edit. John D. Croft (talk) 10:10, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I took the liberty of fixing your spelling of my username. :-)
That being said, I'm not sure what you mean. Of course natural processes were at work (how else would it have happened?) but the article claims Snowball Earth to be in support of the Gaia hypothesis (and it was using some weasel terms as well). I am not sure whether you are familiar with how evidence is evaluated, but briefly if Snowball Earth happening is evidence for Gaia, then Snowball Earth not happening would be evidence against Gaia. A hypothesis cannot make two opposing predictions. The mathematical proof derives from Bayes' theorem and can be found here. I can explain in more detail if you would like. Arc de Ciel (talk) 03:16, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

"Gaia Philosophy" section

This whole section seems like fluff to me. It only repeats what has already been said elsewhere in the article - for example the original work by Margulis and Lovelock, and criticism by Gould and Dawkins - and adds very little of value. There certainly seems to be nothing about "Philosophy". I propose the section is deleted. Atshal (talk) 15:21, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Gaia Conferences

I think the information contained in these sections is excellent and informative, as well as being well written, and has clearly been written by someone who knows the subject well and quite possibly attended these conferences. However, there are very few references, and it seems hard to know how to get appropriate references for these conferences, particularly the older ones.

This section does make up a sizable section of the Gaia Hypothesis article, and add a lot to it, but they are not really "encyclopedic". Does anyone know what the Wiki policy on this kind of thing is? Some of the information (for example, the Kirchner characterizations of Gaia) is available in published papers but I believe most of it would not be, certainly not the "human" element of these conferences.

What do other editors interested in this page think? If the page is to be substantially improved, I don't think the issue can be ignored.Atshal (talk) 10:39, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I actually don't think it adds much that cannot be described in separate sections. I would support spinning it off into a separate article (as originally suggested here). Arc de Ciel (talk) 02:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree that most of the information on Gaia can be incorporated elsewhere in the article, but seems slightly inconsistent to say the content the conference sections are not good enough for this page but good enough for a page of their own. I actually really enjoyed reading those sections, even though they bring down the quality of the article as a whole, and would find a little sad if they were to be deleted entirely! They probably have to go though, to improve the article.
On a slightly different note, I notice that you are one of the major recent editors here, Arc. Did you agree with my deleting of the "Gaia Philosophy" section? Seemed like pseudoscience to me, and the only items of worth in the section were just repetitions of other parts of the article. Atshal (talk) 09:35, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
When I say they could stand as a separate article, I'm thinking of the hypothetical well-written article that they might become. :-) However, I think that the hypothetical well-written article that this article might become would have no place for that much discussion.
About Gaia philosophy, I agree that there shouldn't be so much discussion of it, but I think that a paragraph or two might be appropriate, in the context of the social impact of the hypothesis, as long as it's made clear that the two are separate things. I think one issue is that people who subscribe to Gaia philosophy use the term "Gaia hypothesis" themselves to mean completely different things, e.g. the Earth is alive and/or conscious.
Actually, I just noticed how the Gaia philosophy article treats Gaia philosophy and the Gaia hypothesis as basically the same thing...that will need to be fixed. Arc de Ciel (talk) 08:53, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
I think we are in agreement over the Gaia conferences section. As for the Gaia philosophy, I still don't have a clear definition of what it is, even after reading the article. There is certainly little or no philosophy in it and the only well referenced parts of that article are the references to the science, which are basically repetitions of what is in this article - strip that away and there is little left. The only good section in that articles is "Gaia in Popular Culture", although it needs references.Atshal (talk) 10:46, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify - so you agree with splicing it out into a separate article?

By the way, I noticed your talk page post at Gaia philosophy. To nominate an article for deletion, the correct and formal way to do it is through WP:Articles for deletion. That process covers article mergers as well, but if you would prefer to propose only a merge (which tends to be simpler and less controversial, and will involve deletion of repeated or irrelevant content anyways), the instructions are at WP:proposed mergers - I can help with that if you'd like. It's also possible that some of it could go to different articles, e.g. Gaianism (and I think redirecting Gaia philosophy to Gaianism would probably be better than redirecting it here). Arc de Ciel (talk) 23:55, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for the advice. I don't think the Gaia Philosophy article adds much that is not in this article already. I will take a look at the proposed merger article instead of deletion - I've not actually read the Gaianism article but will take a look. Basically, my objection to the article is the fact that it 'dilutes' the valid scientific topic of Gaia with pseudoscience and non-science ideas. Not quite sure how the process works, but the only way to learn is to try it I guess... Atshal (talk) 21:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Criticism: Bruno Latour

The paragraph on Latour is at best unclear, and at worst gobbledygook. On the off chance that it actually means something, I left the first part of it. The second part - on politics - seemed completely off topic, and so merited deletion. Here it is:

"Facing the Anthropocene by which the Anthropos is no longer in nature, nor outside of nature, Latour foresees the coming of an entirely new kind of political animal, a novel form of political body and political theology (composed of demos, theos, logos) in which science, politics and art play specific roles for the people of Gaia as agents of an impatient planet."

The entire paragraph relied on a dead link and so is unverifiable. I would be glad to hear opinions on the first part, and does it mean anything? Yabti (talk) 09:50, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Decohesion

I added the link to Quantum Decohesion because it is relevant to the Physics of Climatology & to Homeostasis, the basis of the Gaia Hypothesis. " Decohesion occurs when a system interacts with its environment in a thermodynamically irreversible way." & "As with any coupling, entanglements are generated between the system & environment. These have the effect of sharing information with, or transferring it to, the surroundings." Those who do not perceive this have no business "correcting" it.AptitudeDesign (talk) 07:17, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

is that a "See also" addition? Whatever you are trying to do you are doing it wrong. You do not link to wiki by an external link and you do not place signatures inside articles.--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(talk) 12:03, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

daisyworld

I've made a few edits. I'd like to remove the final paragraph because it is stating the obvious. I'd replace it with something more consistent with what is said elsewhere in the article -- the question is "does Earth work like Gaia? Are their real world equivalents for white and Black daisies, or is the model of limited or no relevance?".

(The final paragraph on the current page: "It has been suggested that the results were predictable because Lovelock and Watson selected examples that produced the responses they desired."

Or you could add something like, "the model has nothing to say on the plausiblity of organisms acting like those programmed into Daisyworld emerging through natural selection". 77.98.32.90 (talk) 21:35, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Deleted criticism

Two convoluted edits have removed big chunks of the criticism section (in parallel with seemingly beneficial copyediting). The rationale appears to be that the removed text was repetitive of other article text and was inserted, at least in part, by an author of a Gaia critique, who cited his own work. However, looking down the article history back to how it stood in February 2015, the deleted material also includes criticisms by other scientists as well. As such, the wholesale deletion seems a little hasty to me. I note that the recent deletions follow an extended number of unexplained edits, and it may be that the sense of the text was lost during these edits, and precipitated them. --PLUMBAGO 15:40, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Further to the above, I've rolled back the article revision to one from early March. This reverts a large number of unexplained, and piecemeal, edits by one editor, and restores text removed subsequently by a later editor. Looking at the earlier edits more carefully, I suspect that these made the article text difficult to follow. Anyway, I think what's here now is imperfect but editing it rather than simply deleting it is the way forwards. --PLUMBAGO 10:04, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

CLAW hypothesis "discredited"?

The "recent criticism" section says CLAW has been "discredited". That's a harsh word; I usually hear it in the context of scientific misconduct. The only citation is a review paper, which I don't think can be taken even as demonstrating a scientific consensus against CLAW, much less a discrediting. And if there is a source to show either of those things, the first article that should be revised is CLAW hypothesis, not this one. --Allen (talk) 14:19, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I didn't read it this way, but to reduce confusion I've tried to reword to make it clearer that it's simply regular scientific progress that's the source of this reversal for the CLAW hypothesis. Hope this helps. --PLUMBAGO 16:47, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Cool, thanks; I think it sounds better now. --Allen (talk) 21:06, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Gaian Reproduction and Life

It is often claimed that the lack of reproduction is evidence against the Gaia hypothesis, as reproduction or rather the possibility of reproduction is said to be a characteristic of life. But by this definition a mule is not alive! Carl Sagan, suggested the Space Program would suggest the world is preparing to go to seed. There is also evidence that there is more than one Gaia - Archaean Gaia, with an anoxic atmosphere, Proterozoic Gaia and finally Phaneroic Gaia. It is suggested that Gaia reproduced itself across each transition and evolved a new metastability as a result. Lovelock suggests as much in the Ages of Gaia. John D. Croft (talk) 19:13, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Is this argument ever really used seriously? That is, in a non-rhetorical fashion in a quality source that we can cite. It's facile and smacks of the sort of "characteristics of life" lists from high school biology (cf. why not claim that Gaia is false because the Earth isn't "irritable"?). Gaia is proposed as a dynamical system in which the ebb and flow of ecological actors acts in a fashion to provide a stable climate (in the broadest sense) as an emergent phenomenon. This is surely only analogous at best to the more integrated and self-contained dynamical systems that make up these same ecological actors. And anyway, as the article makes clear elsewhere, there are plenty of arguments against the Gaia hypothesis that don't require dropping to such a first order description of "life". I reckon we should remove the last two sentences of the paragraph as simply unnecessary. --PLUMBAGO 09:56, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
This mule argument/statement is silly. A mule is the offspring of living creatures. The Earth's Gaia wasn't formed from in any analogous way. Moreover, many of these multiple Gaias seem to me to be more about generating names than making actual substantive distinctions: Is "Archaean Gaia" really more meaningful than "Archaean"?. This article needs quite a bit of cleaning. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 13:49, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Purposeful gaia pseudoscience in lead to distinguish good and bad bits

The fact that the gaia hypothesis initially rested(/rests) on purposefulness is currently only first discussed in the criticism section. Given that this is the major reason that the idea attracted so much criticism, it should be discussed right in the lead. The lead should also make a very clear distinction between 1. the initial purposeful idea and 2. later versions which had this removed and 3. the fallout this idea has caused in the wider geoscience community. While the second and the third certainly can have merit, the first is untenable as is evidenced by the publications from such esteemed scientists in the fields of evolutionary biology and geosciences as John Maynard Smith, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Paul Ehrlich, Massimo Pigliucci and Robert May. They have all harshly criticized the idea with arguments ranging from it's contradiction to current evolutionary thinking to it's unfalsifiability and as such it's inability to be a real scientific hypothesis. See for example Pigluicci [1] and Dawkins.[2]

This seems clearly stated in the second paragraph of the lead. --Editor B (talk) 19:57, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree the "Gaia hypothesis" is not a hypothesis in the scientific sense. But I doubt it was "harshly criticized" by Gould: Gould writes:

"Gaia strikes me as a metaphor, not a mechanism. (Metaphors can be liberating and enlightening, but new scientific theories must supply new statements about causality. Gaia, to me, only seems to reformulate, in different terms, the basic conclusions long achieved by classically reductionist arguments of biogeochemical cycling theory.)"

To my mind, this is no criticism but an explanation what it is, to clear up misunderstandings.

Gould had to take a lot of shit from the likes of Dawkins for his Non-overlapping magisteria idea, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Gould and Dawkins on opposite sides of this, but "this" is part of the "culture wars" and does not have any kind of scientific/falsifiable content.

It should be obvious that definitions like "The Gaia hypothesis posits that the Earth is a self-regulating complex system" are without consequence, as it is perfectly undisputable that "the Earth is a complex system", but this still doesn't mean you have to buy into the "Gaia" narrative. It's a metaphor, or a narrative, that appealed some people, surrounding certain facts that aren't really under dispute. This includes "purposeful", as teleology falls into the field of philosophy, not science. It "isn't even wrong" if misunderstood as a scientific hypothesis, but there is nothing wrong with it if you take it as a philosophical or cultural narrative surrounding certain facts of geoscience or biology.

Editor B is right - this is in the lead already. I don't see what needs to change. If you disagree, please expand on why.
Regarding Dbachmann's points, the Gaia hypothesis is intended first and foremost as a scientific idea that makes a very specific case about the nature of life on Earth. Namely that the aggregate of the Earth's living systems act to regulate the climatic conditions of Earth to suit life. This is evidenced by Lovelock's own works as well as research articles that continue to investigate whether the Earth's biota really does operate in such a self-regulating way. Any interpretation of the hypothesis as philosophy or "narrative" is an add-on that does not detract from (or arguably add to) its scientific roots. --PLUMBAGO 22:06, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Pigluicci, M. (2010). Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0226667863.
  2. ^ Dawkins, R. (1982). The Extended Phenotype. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 0-19-286088-7.

Salinity

This section is small and has notes asking for citations. I just attended a class about the sodium (Na) cycle, Pliny, Lavosier, Halley, Emerson and Hedges, Marcet's principle, Libes, MacKenzie and Garrels, and Leo Da Vinci's theories relating to the scientific theory of salinity.

Could this information be linked from other Wikilinks to support this sub-section?

If this is appropriate I can start on this for my Biogeochemical class requirements. To state what the Gaia Hypothesis Theory's are they should be compared to scientific pages relating to each part.

Can the concepts, in my own words, be added to understand what the fundamental teachings of salinity are in this theory?

I can try to find other sources to validate Lovelock's or counter his views about salinity.Winterba (talk) 06:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

This section is pretty badly sourced at the moment. I've just had a look in the scientific literature to see if any papers talk about salinity in this context. It's very, very slim pickings — I only got one hit; (but I only tried a few search terms) — which I interpret as this not being an active research topic (this is more generally true of Gaia). However, I did find one quite explicit hit from 2001 that talks about the Mediterranean Sea as being Gaia's "kidney" (you can probably access it here). This is definitely worth citing here. I was going to say that the article should indicate what the mainstream, non-Gaian interpretation of salinity is, but I can't find any sources on that on the salinity page. Ho-hum. --PLUMBAGO 11:32, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

UpdatesWinterba (talk) 22:06, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

The introduction has changed and is much easier to view without large areas of blanks space. I hope to update the salinity section today with a citation and some links. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Gaia_hypothesis&action=edit&section=new# Winterba (talk) 22:06, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Introduction and strong / weak Gaia

The current introduction begins with a description of the hypothesis that presents what most scientists would interpret as a weak form of Gaia (i.e. coevolution). It doesn't support this with any cites apart from that of Lovelock's 1995 book, and my recollection of this is that it's a conventional presentation of strong Gaia (i.e. homeostasis), albeit it with alignment with neo-Darwinism, etc. This description differs substantially from the lead, which rightly begins with a statement about strong Gaia - the foundation of the hypothesis. I suspect this reframing reflects the lack of support for strong Gaia in the scientific literature (and some evidence of the reverse), but it is not an accurate reflection of the hypothesis as framed by Lovelock (and adhered to by some scientists). While I haven't the time to hand right now to rebalance this, I wanted to flag it up to check that I'm not a lone voice. I'm envisaging re-balancing the introduction to put strong Gaia up front, with its diluted variants secondary. --PLUMBAGO 09:12, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, it's my understanding that strong Gaia is largely discredited whereas weak Gaia is so generally accepted that many scientists don't even use the term Gaia to refer to it. Lovelock started strong and changed over time; Margulis' substantial contribution to the theory was coevolution. So the question in my mind is: should the lead dwell on the historical roots or the current consensus? --Editor B (talk) 16:49, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
I suppose my take would be that the lead is correct (i.e. describes the hypothesis as it was framed), but that the introduction gets off on the wrong foot by playing up where the hypothesis sits in scientific circles today (i.e. that weaker forms are the only ones that have any support; and even then they have little overt support). Basically, I feel that the article should describe strong Gaia and then go on to expound on where the hypothesis sits today (i.e. not at the head of the lead or the top of the introduction). But that's my view, and before I do anything (which, in any case, won't be soon), I just wanted to see if there were alternative views (which are acceptable; it's alternative facts we have to watch out for). --PLUMBAGO 10:41, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
P.S. In a side-action, I've proposed to delete the article on Geophysiology. The concept is so wedded to Gaia that it doesn't need a separate article and should be redirected here (IMHO).

Geophysiology

@Plumbago: Why did you delete all references to "geophysiology", only to re-create Geophysiology as a redirect to this article—where there is now no mention of the term? I'm confused. — Gorthian (talk) 21:59, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

@Gorthian: I deleted the two references to geophysiology as they were misrepresenting the concept as if it is a fully-fledged field of study - in fact, it is completely associated with Gaia (Earth system science is probably its closest mainstream analog). However, as a term associated with Gaia, redirecting "geophysiology" to this article post-deletion seems reasonable to me. Sorry if I've been confusing, however. --PLUMBAGO 08:50, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
@Plumbago: I have no problem with deleting those references to "geophysiology"; it's the creation of the redirect that bothers me. If someone searches on the term, they'll get sent to an article where it isn't even mentioned, much less explained. If it's used as a synonym for the Gaia hypothesis, then that should be in the article. Maybe something in the section "Formulation of the hypothesis" about how it used to be called "geophysiology"? Obviously, I don't know enough to make a useful edit. — Gorthian (talk) 16:04, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
@Gorthian: That's a very fair point. What I should have done was add an explicit reference to "geophysiology" to the text. I'll try to think up a suitable wording to fit the bill. Thanks for picking me up on this. I have, yet again, skilfully seen the wood but not the trees. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 16:25, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

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Strong and weak

I notice the strong and weak versions are still not mentioned much in the article. As mentioned above, they're quite important. The current article gives a lot of criticism to what is essentially strong Gaia, while weak Gaia is very much accepted. Kirchner came up with the terms, but I've seen them pop up in many works related to intelligent systems. Prinsgezinde (talk) 23:54, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Quick Evaluation From a New Perspective

After giving a read through your article and through the previous edits suggested by others, there are a few sections that would require better referencing (clearly indicated by others before me), however, much of the information presented is highly relevant and contributes to a greater understanding of everything that stems from the Gaia hypothesis. If some of the corrections could be made, i.e. finding better sources, expanding on a couple concepts, etc., then this article would be all the more complete. At a glance, much of the information also seems to be rather up to date, and with continuous suggestions being made for new edits this article continues to expand and become all the more relevant. Good job so far!

Cheers! -OricaRyu (talk) 05:38, 31 January 2019 (UTC)


--- Hypersensitive and Syncretic Cognitive Perspective through and Spiritual Lens --- ((So disculpe mi familia, I went straight for the jugular on the main article but didn't realize it at the time. I guess it'll be alright I just gotta balance and allow cognition to ebb an flow synchronistically and naturally forward with respect to subjective needs. Below is my experience and subjective take on the 'hypothesis' of a divine feminine that is also an entire planet and conscious and has many needs and her own voice and needs a reminder or two at times;

"The cross-culturally and ethically, genuine and honest reflection and introspective nature both man and our communities as a whole is a method of which we may examine external factors and cognitive reasoning and scientific lenses, but in doing so we may effectively lose sight of the extensiveness of our actions as they permeate- as well as our own needs and actions in a manner of which we believe we may affect a genuinely cognitive and hypersensitive; multi-faceted cognitive being such as our planet is both lofty as well as simplistic; it can be both complex or as simple as looking outside yourself, as both poets and mathematicians could tell you from looking at the universe and celestial bodies around our planet. Perhaps it is more an issue of understanding our true Nature and sense of truth self; rather than the data and setting aside the constructs of doubt and the diatribes of the past that no longer served us as a whole or were too detrimental to be genuine or sustainable for our grandchildren and their future generations. 

Toxicity of the physical kind is not a reason to permeate trauma and lack of sustainable growth.
 Approaches to the Gaia/Goddess paradigm takes is a duplicitous but also genuine and cross-culturally competent cognition that would make it far more rational for both objective and subjective reasoning that validates what was at some point a 'hypothesis'; while no one person may speak the truth of an entire conscious living systems, world leaders of different professions and many walks of life could confirm this as a genuine point of growth and progress; i.e a scientific and colloquially recognized modus operandi as a means of understanding how we might begin addressing 21st century issues such as climate change, socio-economic Justice, human rights and community involvement, responsible and ethical resource management, and ongoing environmental harmonization. 
 Along with proliferating and progression of the Earth's sustainable and ethical initiatives first and foremost, we may both look internally and externally, as well as down the proverbial generational road for forward growth in a "back-to-basics" methodology of sorts while focusing on our subjective needs and communities, which in turn will progress and speed up the growth and healing of the Gaia paradigm as a whole in the literal sense for both continuity of our home and for future generations.

Progressing with the needs of many outweighing the few, we may also cross-examine the syncretic and parallel effects on the more expansive and prolific goals of our species as aw whole and where we may someday fit in more literally with the universe as a whole. 

  By progressing forward as well as acknowledging our past lessons but not constantly ruminating and dwelling on them, we may begin again together as a species both autonomous and of ourselves as well as collective that is responsible and ethically intertwined to each other and Earth, we may begin to examine the necessity for responsible momentum on both the means of which we intentionally examine our footprint as well as how it may affect the overarching goals of both our local communities and communities abroad." (Derek M. Avila, Parables on Unity; et. al 2020-22)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.230.57 (talk) 04:55, 29 October 2020 (UTC) 

((Feel free to check the objective nature of these conceptualizations, everyone's subjective knowledge and strengths can be used to better eachother's capabilities collectively. I'll be checking in periodically as well~)) 24.218.230.57 (talk) 05:18, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
This content may be worth including but it needs to be paraphrased and sourced properly for the community to more easily evaluate. As it was, I had to remove it because it was truly unclear what was a quote and what may be unsourced conjecture. Central Midfielder (talk) 15:47, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

The Zell-Ravenheart Dispute

I think it's mildly fascinating that there isn't any mention about the controversy surrounding the original adumbration of the Gaia hypothesis. Namely whether it was originally proposed by James Lovelock or Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, who are contemporary influences. Granted, one finds it far easier to attribute it to the English scientist and not the American educator (and, frankly, the hippy), however there is enough on the testimonial end of the evidentiary record to cause some reasonable dubiety to surface. While the arguments have stagnated, it was still a fairly significant point in the attribution of the theories origins and even the source of much of the institutional association biases that led to its quick dismissal by most physical scientists. Would anyone agree that it deserves at least some mention in the Arty?

Luxnir (talk) 11:48, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Daisyworld section vs article

Gaia_hypothesis#Daisyworld_simulations is pretty extensive considering that Daisyworld exists and is in fact a good article. Gaia hypothesis is already too long, and a thinner Daisyworld section pointing to the main article would help. There is work for a volunteer to keep the section here at a minimum and move to Daisyworld the information not mentioned there, if any.--Qgil (talk) 01:35, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

In fact, the Daisyworld content could be located inside the section "Regulation of the global surface temperature", since this is what the model aims to demonstrate.--Qgil (talk) 14:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
Done. Now the text under "Regulation of the global surface temperature" needs a bit of expansion. Maybe there is more to move from below in the article, maybe we can take the basic content from other WP pages or maybe we must go to the sources and extract what matters.--Qgil (talk) 02:19, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
I recommend using this Daisyworld plot from Lovelock's 2014 book, as it allows a better comparison with temperatures in the geologic record (the image preceding it in this article). 24.237.39.251 (talk) 23:39, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Lovelock did not introduce the term

It says early on in this article that the hypothesis was proposed by James Lovelock. That is true, but it was said on Last Word today (Friday 12 August 2022) that the term for it, "Gaia hypothesis", was not chosen by Lovelock, but by William Golding. YTKJ (talk) 15:25, 12 August 2022 (UTC) Yes, this website - https://william-golding.co.uk/james_lovelock_at_100 - says that Golding was Lovelock's neighbour, and suggested the term. This should be mentioned at an early stage in the article. YTKJ (talk) 15:33, 12 August 2022 (UTC) As no one else has changed the article, I have put this in myself, but someone will probably add the comment "citation needed." YTKJ (talk) 20:01, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

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