Could the land develop its own consciousness? The Gaia hypothesis offers an unorthodox response
Could the land is home to billions of years, but could the planet itself be considered a living thing? Most people simply consider the earth as a giant rock – one with the perfect conditions for nourishing life as we know it today, animals and plants with microscopic bacteria. But the English environment scientist James Lovelock thought differently.
At the start of traditional university opinions, Lovelock collaborated with the American evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s to develop a new perspective called the Gaia hypothesis. This idea supervises the earth as a living system in which all organisms influence the surrounding environment to maintain homeostasis (in other words, stability). Although the hypothesis remains very controversial to date, it has expanded scientific dialogue on the identity of our planet.
TGaia hypothesis
By formulating the Gaia hypothesis, Lovelock was inspired by ancient Greek mythology. Gaia, the Greek goddess of the earth, was adored as the mother of all creation.
In a chapter of the 1988 book “Biodiversity”, Lovelock insinuated That the idea of ​​a living land is deeply rooted in humanity, but was largely lost in the scientific community after the 19th century.
THE Gaia hypothesis has rekindled this buried idea, proposing that the earth is an entire living entity, essentially a superorganism composed of many parts acting in synergy (a bit like a colony of ant or bee). The earth lives and breathes, suggested Lovelock, through closed feedback loops which balance the conditions of the planet and keep them favorable to life. By this hypothesis, organisms facilitate processes that regulate things such as atmospheric temperature and salinity of the ocean, for example.
Learn more:: Space molecules may have triggered life on earth billions of years ago
Critics against the Gaia hypothesis
Most of the criticisms that initially surfaced opponents of the hypothesis said that the earth and living organisms could not act to support the planet consciously, with an intentional objective in the mind. The faithful supporters of Darwinism did not believe that the organizations could “reach a common good by natural selection and that natural selection cannot act on the whole planet”, in the words of a 2021 Eartharxiv preliminary paper.
Others argued that the hypothesis was more a metaphor, because it could not be tested for validity. Scientists debated the Gaia hypothesis during four Gaia conferences, trying to resolve disagreements.
During the second Gaia conference, held in 1988, Lovelock responded to criticism by developing a mathematical model called Daisyworld. Here, a hypothetical planet modeled after the Earth contains two types of daisies: the black daisies who absorb the light and warm the planet, and the white Marguerites which reflect the light and cool the planet. The model suggests that the daisies stabilize the climate in a way that allows the planet to maintain an optimal temperature for the two types to live.
Daisyworld would not silence the criticisms entirely, as they would continue to find problems with the lack of additional contributory factors that could affect life and make the system unstable. For example, a system could have “cheaters” – selfish organisms that do not work towards the stability of a planet.
Make our planet smarter
The earth may not be alive in the traditional sense, but does it have its own mind? Scientists thought about this question in a 2022 study published in the International Astrobiology Journal.
Participately inspired by the Gaia hypothesis, the researchers presented the concept of planetary intelligence, explaining how collective activity can create an autonomous system on earth. The study stipulates that the planet is currently on a step called “Immature Technosphere”, in which technology has not yet been fully implemented to conduct earth systems. Currently, we always exhaust natural resources such as fossil fuels without benefiting the planet in return.
Finally, however, we can unlock the next stage of planetary intelligence, which researchers call “mature technology”. This would require technology to directly support the well-being of the land without inflicting negative impacts. Although there is no saying climate change.
Find out more: The chronometer works differently on the moon – here is how NASA will regulate the lunar time
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Jack Knudson is a deputy editor -in -chief to discover with a strong interest in environmental sciences and history. Before joining Discover in 2023, he studied journalism at the Ohio University Scripps College of Communication and previously interned at Recycling TODAY magazine.
