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The Gaia hypothesis (/ ˈɡaɪ.ə /), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.
Gaia philosophy (named after Gaia, Greek goddess of the Earth) is a broadly inclusive term for relating concepts about, humanity as an effect of the life of this planet. The Gaia hypothesis holds that all organisms on a life-giving planet regulate the biosphere in such a way as to promote its habitability.
James Ephraim Lovelock CH CBE FRS (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022) was an English independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist.He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating system.
Gaia is the personification of the Earth, and these are her offspring as related in various myths. Some are related consistently, some are mentioned only in minor variants of myths, and others are related in variants that are considered to reflect a confusion of the subject or association.
One of the earliest significant publications on Gaia was a 1974 paper co-authored by Lovelock and Margulis, which succinctly defined the hypothesis as follows: "The notion of the biosphere as an active adaptive control system able to maintain the Earth in homeostasis we are calling the 'Gaia hypothesis.'" [26]
James Lovelock, who developed the Gaia hypothesis in the 1970s, cites Hutton as saying that the Earth was a superorganism and that its proper study should be physiology. [45] Lovelock writes that Hutton's view of the Earth was rejected because of the intense reductionism among 19th-century scientists. [45]
Gaianism is an earth-centered philosophical, holistic, and spiritual belief that shares expressions with earth religions and paganism while not identifying exclusively with any specific one. [1][2] The term describes a philosophy and ethical worldview which, though not necessarily religious, implies a transpersonal devotion to earth as a ...
The Gaia hypothesis holds that biological processes work to maintain a stable surface climate on Earth to maintain habitability through various negative feedback mechanisms. While organic processes, such as the organic carbon cycle, work to regulate dramatic climate changes, and that the surface of Earth has presumably remained habitable, this ...