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Loading... Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth (The Commonwealth Fund Book Program) (original 1988; edition 1988)by James Lovelock
Work InformationThe Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth by James E. Lovelock (1988)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Definitely not a casual read for the laymen. The narrative is a bit hard to follow and even harder to follow if you are not well versed in the geological subject and theories. ( ) I have a background in Physics and Computing. I was and remain deeply impressed by Lovelock as a scientist. Having heard and seen him interviewed, I should say he is also scary. The original 'Gaia' by Lovelock was very thought-provoking, not only for me but for the thinking scientific world as a whole - I was (more or less) 'convinced'. After reading this follow-up, I am less convinced. Maybe it's increasing age (or cynicism, if you prefer) but some of the ideas expressed here seem to me to be a little 'dodgy'. A particular case in point is the proposal in Chapter 9 ('God and Gaia') that the mathematical procedure called iteration is a "trial and error, staggering, stumbling walk.". This is quite simply untrue! Also, in the same chapter, 'reductionism' in science seems to be subject to the claim that the discovery of chaos theory has reduced reductionism to 'a few scattered fragments on a pool of water' (or words to that effect). This is utter balderdash. Reductionism has/had problems in the sense that attempts to increase the precision of calculations/predictions by increasing the resolution with which a problem is approached, failed to provide the hoped-for increase in precision/reliability of the results. This is because of fundamental limits to precision due to 'chaos'. The application of chaos theory to straight reductionism allows us to understand why this is the case - reductionism still works - albeit in a modified form with chaos theory - in the same way that wave-particle duality allows us to understand the strange behaviour of particles/photons at extremely small scales/sizes. Also, the Further Reading and End Notes are a bit haphazard - not usual in a scientific work, in my experience. Never sure if this will be seen as the origin of the species of the 20th century. Or just a passing over radial ecological view. The danger is that it gets confused with some people with Mother Nature/ earth goddess which is not the argument. It’s more that each of the systems of a planet with life interlock with and affects each other. Nowadays, there are many different forms of Gaia theory, from “weak” to “strong.” Weak Gaia maintains only that life is important in shaping the Earth. This form of Gaia theory is generally accepted by many scientists today. In contrast, strong Gaia—the form that Lovelock endorses— says that life doesn’t just merely influence the physical processes of the planet, but actually controls them. no reviews | add a review
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James Lovelock proposes that all living species are components of that organism, as cells are components of the human body. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)575.01Natural sciences and mathematics Life Sciences, Biology Physiological systems in plants EvolutionLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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