James
Ephraim Lovelock, (1919 -
) a British scientist and
inventor, is best known as the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis, the
idea that the Earth is a single living entity. His seminal book,
Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, published in 1979, and many
articles and books since, have set off an on-going storm of argument
about the nature of life on the planet.
Elected as a member of the British Royal Society in 1976, Lovelock had studied at Manchester and London Universities. After working at the National Institute for Medical Research (1941--61), he went to the US as professor of chemistry at Baylor University, TX (1961-64). During that time, he worked as a consultant for NASA, helping to design instruments for early lunar probes and life detection experiments on probes to Mars. It was during his work on the latter that he realized that the Earth's atmosphere is far out of equilibirum due to the living things that interact with it. This led to the hypothesis of the Earth as a whole functioning as a single living organism, regulating its own environment, e.g. temperature and oxygen levels, to serve its life needs.
Lovelock has the reputation of being an highly independent, interdiciplinary and eccentric thinker. He has maintained a steadfast "self-employed" status, supporting himself through his inventions, so as not to be tied and beholden to particular political, business and academic organizations and interests. In the late 70's, he began a collaboration with Lynn Margulis, a well-respected American microbiologist, to further develop the Gaia hypothesis.
The name Gaia was taken from the Greek goddess of the Earth. In adopting this name for the Earth, Lovelock sought to key off the earth mother and nurturing associations of the Greek mythological figure. In so combining mythology and science, he brought humanists into the realm of science and humanism to many people in the scientific community.
Lovelock and Margullis are co-directors of the Gaia Society, and the society website is their official information source. However, a search on Gaia on the Internet quickly leads to dozens of sites that have adopted the Gaia hypothesis into environmental and ecological thinking and movements.
Designed by: Walter Matreyek
James E. Lovelock. (1979) Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. London: Oxford University Press
Lawrence E. Joseph. (1990). GAIA, The Growth of an Idea. New York: St. Martin's Press
Gaia Society website [Online]. Available at http://ibs.uel.ac.uk/gaia/
Gaianation website [Online] http://www.gaialogic.org/gaianation/gaia.html
The Gaia Hypothesis [Online] http://magna.com.au/~prfbrown/gaia.html