Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next CenturyStephen Henry Schneider MIT Press, 2004 - 377 pages 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 lenses: 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. |
Table des matières
Clarifying Gaia Regulation with or without Natural Selection | 15 |
Gaia Is Life in a Wasteworld of Byproducts | 27 |
Models and Geophysiological Hypotheses | 37 |
Gaia Toward a Thermodynamics of Life | 45 |
Gaia Extended Organisms and Emergent Homeostasis | 57 |
Homeostatic Gaia An Ecologists Perspective on the Possibility of Regulation | 71 |
Phosphorus a Servant Faithful to Gaia? Biosphere Remediation Rather Than Regulation | 79 |
SelfRegulation of Ocean Composition by the Biosphere | 93 |
Gaia and the Human Species | 223 |
Daisyworld Homeostasis and the Earth System | 231 |
Salvaging the Daisyworld Parable under the Dynamic Area Fraction Framework | 241 |
Food Web Complexity Enhances Ecological and Climatic Stability in a Gaian Ecosystem Model | 255 |
Gaia in the Machine The Artificial Life Approach | 267 |
On Causality and Ice Age Deglaciations | 281 |
Amazonian Biogeography as a Test for Gaia | 291 |
Modeling Feedbacks Between Water and Vegetation in the North African Climate System | 297 |
A New Biogeochemical Earth System Model for the Phanerozoic Eon | 101 |
Gaia and Glaciation Lipalian Vendian Environmental Crisis | 115 |
Does Life Drive Disequilibrium in the Biosphere? | 129 |
Biotic Plunder Control of the Environment by Biological Exhaustion of Resources | 137 |
Gaia The Living Earth2500 Years of Precedents in Natural Science and Philosophy | 151 |
Concerned with Trifles? A Geophysiological Reading of Charles Darwins Last Book | 161 |
Gradient Reduction Theory Thermodynamics and the Purpose of Life | 173 |
Gaia and Complexity | 187 |
Gaia and Observer Selfselection | 201 |
Taming Gaia The History of the Dutch Lowlands as an Analogy to Global Change | 211 |
Extraterrestrial Galas | 309 |
The Tinto River an Extreme Gaian Environment | 321 |
Climate and the Amazona Gaian System? | 335 |
On the Coevolution of Life and Its Environment | 343 |
Stability and Instability in Ecological Systems Gaia Theory and Evolutionary Biology | 353 |
Studying Gaia The NASA Planetary Biology Internship FBI Program | 363 |
List of Contributors | 365 |
369 | |
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Références à ce livre
Fundamental Processes in Ecology: An Earth Systems Approach David M Wilkinson Aucun aperçu disponible - 2006 |