Lovelock and Gaia

by Jon Turney

Gaia is a theory of the Earth that has revolutionised how we see this 'pale blue dot': all living things are part of one great organism and life as a whole shapes the planetary environment. Lovelock and Gaia tells how that came about including the theory's long struggle to gain respectability. Opponents dubbed it mere metaphor or myth, suggested that it was either irrefutable or unnecessary, or argued that it was impossible on Darwinian grounds for life to affect environment on a global scale in any way which could be fruitfully coupled with natural selection. It is not yet clear where it will lead but its impact compares with the greatest of scientific revolutions.

Genres: Science

157 pages, Hardcover

First published April 7, 2003

About the author

Science writer

Reviews

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Lovelock and Gaia' is one of a series of short pocket reviews of revolutions in scientific thinking that appeared from Icon Books at the beginning of the century. In historical-chronological terms, this is the last in the run following a similar book on the Manhattan Project and 'Big Science'.

It is a far-minded account, acceptable to Lovelock (which would normally make me nervous) and one that does not stint on technical detail when required, by a writer and academic specialising in popular science, Jon Turney.

The book only takes us up to 2003 when it was published but little has changed in regard to the two key trajectories, often confused, that have arisen from the Gaia concept - the useful one of looking at the earth as a complexs total system and the clinically insane one of believing in intent.

The two trajectories should be sharply distinguished - one is science and one is rather potty religion, sadly a religion that seems to have captured the minds of an awful lot of otherwise sane and apparently intelligent human beings. But then that is religion for you.

Lovelock was an outsider in the scientific community. There is nothing wrong with that. Outsiders often come up with some of the best ideas. In this case, he came up with the idea that biological entities were material (literally) contributors to the way the earth operated as a system.

As always in science, the story is a little more complex than that but it was a useful idea and, albeit slowly, triggered the research programme that underpin today's climate science with its attempt to understand all the many variables that make up the global system.

The problem was that, like many single-minded mavericks, Lovelock got carried away with other like-minded mavericks to introduce something teleological into the system, the notion of Gaia (the ancient Greek earth goddess). Things have started to go downhill culturally ever since.

To be fair, Lovelock tended to back-track from the implications of teleology and redirect himself back to the science but new social interests had emerged in the meantime that were minded to grab the science and turn it towards the woo woo end of the spectrum.

There is telling moment when Lovelock, perhaps understanding the implications, tried at a meeting in the mid-1990s to abandon Gaia for the safer and frankly more intelligent term of geophysiology but leading 'activists' persuaded him not to because of its agit-prop value outside science.

God preserve us from activists! They are a black hole where intellectual and moral integrity goes to die. The rot that leads us to the eco-religion and St. Greta of Thunberg starts somewhere around there and then with the triumph of 'activists' over scientists, Yes, downhill from that point on!

This is a shame because the scientific approach, which does not create its own opposition by emphasising woo woo to rational people, has to be right - the earth may be accidental (which is what the evidence will bear) and we lucky but it is, nevertheless a 'system'.

Moreover, the system includes 'life' which everyone who is not a nutty vitalist would agree is material in itself and has material effects on the the wider material world and the wider material world has effects on it. Try eating arsenic and seeing if this is not true.

The earth sciences becoming inclusive of biological processes is a no-brainer. We should all be grateful to not only Lovelock but his collaborator Margulis and others for perhaps somewhat monomaniacally drawing attention to this truth.

Sadly, we are also left with the politics and culture of the eco-loons who really do believe that Gaia is some kind of spiritual entity and that Gaia self-regulates with some mind of its own (when it has no mind to give a damn about us or the dinosaurs).

The question of what to do next depends on whether reliable science without ideology (and we have to worry now that science has become guided by ideology - just read the 'Nature' Newsletter on a daily basis for proof) or ideology purloining science will dictate terms to us in the coming years.

The problem is that the rise of a new eco-religion hunting for its Constantine and prepared to do anything amoral to win power fails to allow us to consider the science objectively and then work with it for strategies of assessment, transition, adaptation and resilience. Blind faith is all.

All that considered, Turney's book, highly respectful towards Lovelock yet not afraid to present the challenges to the Gaia hypothesis is not a bad basic guide to the 'revolution' and the history of the theory up to the date of publication. The last two decades will need other sources.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy read about a subject that is a bit difficult to get around - I have struggled through Lovelock's Gaia without really getting to grips with what he is actually claiming and hoped that this book would help. I provides a good overview of the field, with much cross-referencing to the work of others and more recent developments, although I still don't really understand what the concept of Gaia is actually claiming - could be anywhere between "we are not here by blind chance and are the result of a fortuitous series of evolutionary happen chances" to "there is some pre-ordained control (and reason) about our (the whole of life) existence". It hasn't put me off reading more though!

[Margaret]

first borrowed when i was beginning my GDP research.
looks like a good read. someday.
Spring 2012