In News
- Recently, James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia hypothesis died on his 103rd birthday.
About Gaia hypothesis
- James Lovelock:
- He was one of the UK’s most respected independent scientists.
- He spent his life advocating for climate measures, starting decades before many others started to take notice of the crisis.
- In 2006, the Geological Society of London awarded Lovelock the Wollaston Medal in part for his work on the Gaia hypothesis.
- Gaia hypothesis:
- It is named after the ancient Greek goddess of Earth.
- It 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.
- It posits that life on Earth is a self-regulating community of organisms interacting with each other and their surroundings.
- Criticism
- The Gaia hypothesis was initially criticised for being teleological and against the principles of natural selection.
- Later refinements aligned the Gaia hypothesis with ideas from fields such as Earth system science, biogeochemistry and systems ecology.
Source: ET
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