Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next Century

by Dorion Sagan, Stephen Henry Schneider

Scientists Debate Gaia is a multidisciplinary reexamination of the Gaia hypothesis, which was introduced by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the early 1970s. The Gaia hypothesis holds that Earth's physical and biological processes are linked to form a complex, self-regulating system and that life has affected this system over time. Until a few decades ago, most of the earth sciences viewed the planet through disciplinary biology, chemistry, geology, atmospheric and ocean studies. The Gaia hypothesis, on the other hand, takes a very broad interdisciplinary approach. Its most controversial aspect suggests that life actively participates in shaping the physical and chemical environment on which it depends in a way that optimizes the conditions for life. Despite initial dismissal of the Gaian approach as New Age philosophy, it has today been incorporated into mainstream interdisciplinary scientific theory, as seen in its strong influence on the field of Earth System Science. Scientists Debate Gaia provides a fascinating, multi-faceted examination of Gaia as science and addresses significant criticism of, and changes in, the hypothesis since its introduction.In the book, 53 contributors explore the scientific, philosophical, and theoretical foundations of Gaia. They address such topics as the compatibility of natural selection and Gaian processes, Gaia and the "thermodynamics of life," the role of computer models in Gaian science (from James Lovelock's famous but controversial "Daisyworld" to more sophisticated models that use the techniques of artificial life), pre-Socratic precedents for the idea of a "Living Earth," and the climate of the Amazon Basin as a Gaian system.

Hardcover

First published August 13, 2004

About the author

Dorion Sagan (born 1959 in Madison, Wisconsin) is an American science writer, essayist, and theorist. He has written and co-authored many books on culture, evolution, and the history and philosophy of science, most recently The Sciences of Avatar: from Anthropology to Xenology and Death and Sex, which won first place at the 2010 New York Book Show in the general trade nonfiction category. His Into the Cool, co-authored with Eric D. Schneider, is about the relationship between non-equilibrium thermodynamics and life.

A Fellow of the Lindisfarne Association, he has been a Humana Scholar at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, and received an Educational Press Association of America Excellence in Educational Journalism Award for “The Riddle of Sex,” which appeared in The Science Teacher. His Death and Sex, a two-in-one hardcover published by Chelsea Green, won the 2010 New York Book Show in the competitive general trade nonfiction category. His current interests include philosophy and science fiction.

Sagan is the son of astronomer Carl Sagan and biologist Lynn Margulis. His younger brother is Jeremy Sagan and his half-brother is Nick Sagan.