Writing Gaia The Scientific Correspondence Of James Lovelock And Lynn Margulis
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Writing Gaia: The Scientific Correspondence of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis by Bruce Clarke,Sébastien Dutreuil Pdf
In 1972, James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis began collaborating on the Gaia hypothesis. They suggested that over geological time, life on Earth has had a major role in both producing and regulating its own environment. Gaia is now an ecological and environmental worldview underpinning vital scientific and cultural debates over environmental issues. Their ideas have transformed the Earth and life sciences, as well as contemporary conceptions of nature. Their correspondence describes these crucial developments from the inside, showing how their partnership proved decisive for the development of the Gaia hypothesis. Clarke and Dutreuil provide historical background and explain the concepts and references introduced throughout the Lovelock-Margulis correspondence, while highlighting the major landmarks of their collaboration within the sequence of almost 300 letters written between 1970 and 2007. This book will be of interest to researchers in ecology, history of science, environmental history and climate change, and cultural science studies.
Symbionts by Caroline A. Jones,Natalie Bell,Selby Nimrod Pdf
Essays, conversations, selected texts, and a rich collection of thought-provoking artworks celebrate a revolution in bio art. Expertly designed by Omnivore and printed on special papers, including chlorophyll cover and crush citrus and crush cocoa pages. The texts and artworks in Symbionts provoke a necessary conversation about our species and its relation to the planet. Are we merely “mammalian weeds,” as evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis put it? Or are we partners in producing and maintaining the biosphere, as she also suggested? Symbionts reflects on a recent revolution in bio art that departs from the late-1990s code-oriented experiments to embrace entanglement and symbiosis (“with-living”). Combining documentation of contemporary artworks with texts by leading thinkers, Symbionts, which accompanies an exhibition at MIT List Visual Arts Center, offers an expansive view of humanity’s place on the planet. Color reproductions document works by international artists that respond to the revelation that planetary microbes construct and maintain our biosphere. A central essay by coeditor Caroline Jones sets their work in the context of larger discussions around symbiosis; additional essays, an edited roundtable discussion, and selected excerpts follow. Contributors explore, among other things, the resilient ecological knowledge of indigenous scholars and artists, and “biofiction,” a term coined by Jones to describe the work of such theoretical biologists as Jacob von Uexküll as well as the witty parafictions of artist Anicka Yi. A playful glossary puts scientific terms in conversation with cultural ones.
Gaia, in which James Lovelock puts forward his inspirational and controversial idea that the Earth functions as a single organism, with life influencing planetary processes to form a self-regulating system aiding its own survival, is now a classic work that continues to provoke heated scientific debate.
Gaia, the Thesis, the Mechanisms and the Implications by Peter Bunyard,Edward Goldsmith,Wadebridge Ecological Centre Pdf
The implications of the Gaia hypothesis are multitudinous. Three stand out as particularly important. First, nature can no longer be seen as a random assortment of different forms of life. Second, living organisms, instead of being competitive and aggressive, must on the contrary cooperate with each other and third, Gaia is best seen as a cybernetic system capable of maintaining its stability
“The book is full of empathetic, insightful, and often very funny portraits of Margulis, Lovelock, and a community of other figures associated with Gaia.” —Carla Nappi, New Books in Science, Technology, and Society In 1965 English scientist James Lovelock had a flash of insight: the Earth is not just teeming with life; the Earth, in some sense, is life. He mulled this revolutionary idea over for several years, first with his close friend the novelist William Golding, and then in an extensive collaboration with the American scientist Lynn Margulis. In the early 1970s, he finally went public with the Gaia hypothesis, the idea that everything happens for an end: the good of planet Earth. Lovelock and Margulis were scorned by professional scientists, but the general public enthusiastically embraced Lovelock and his hypothesis. In The Gaia Hypothesis, philosopher Michael Ruse, with his characteristic clarity and wit, uses Gaia and its history, its supporters and detractors, to illuminate the nature of science itself. Gaia emerged in the 1960s, a decade when authority was questioned and status and dignity stood for nothing, but its story is much older. Ruse traces Gaia’s connection to Plato and a long history of goal-directed and holistic—or organicist—thinking and explains why Lovelock and Margulis’s peers rejected it as pseudoscience. But Ruse also shows why the project was a success. He argues that Lovelock and Margulis should be commended for giving philosophy firm scientific basis and for provoking important scientific discussion about the world as a whole, its homeostasis or—in this age of global environmental uncertainty—its lack thereof. “[Ruse’s] treatment is thought-provoking and original, as you would expect from this perceptive, irrepressible philosopher of biology.” —New Scientist
"Microcosmos is nothing less than the saga of the life of the planet. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan have put it all together, literally, in this extraordinary book, which is unlike any treatment of evolution for a general readership that I have encountered before. A fascinating account that we humans should be studying now for clues to our own survival."—From the Foreword by Dr. Lewis Thomas Microcosmos brings together the remarkable discoveries of microbiology in the later decades of the 20th century and the pioneering research of Dr. Margulis to create a vivid new picture of the world that is crucial to our understanding of the future of the planet. Addressed to general readers, the book provides a beautifully written view of evolution as a process based on interdependency and their interconnectedness of all life on the planet.
"Lynn Margulis is one of the most successful synthetic thinkers in modern biology. This collection of her work, enhanced by essays co-authored with Dorion Sagan, is a welcome introduction to the full breadth of her many contributions." EDWARD O. WILSON, AUTHOR OF THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE "An important contribution to the history of the 20th century. Read it and you will taste the flavor of real science." JAMES LOVELOCK, AUTHOR OF GAIA: A NEW LOOK AT LIFE ON EARTH "Truly inspirational and of fundamental importance. This thoughtful series of essays on some of the largest questions concerning the nature of life on earth deserves careful study."PETER RAVEN, MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN
Tireless, controversial, and hugely inspirational to those who knew her or encountered her work, Lynn Margulis was a scientist whose intellectual energy and interests knew no bounds. Best known for her work on the origins of eukaryotic cells, the Gaia hypothesis, and symbiogenesis as a driving force in evolution, her work has forever changed the way we understand life on Earth. When Margulis passed away in 2011, she left behind a groundbreaking scientific legacy that spanned decades. In this collection, Dorion Sagan, Margulis's son and longtime collaborator, gathers together the voices of friends and colleagues to remark on her life and legacy, in essays that cover her early collaboration with James Lovelock, her fearless face-off with Richard Dawkins during the so-called "Battle of Balliol" at Oxford, the intrepid application of her scientific mind to the insistence that 9/11 was a false-flag operation, her affinity for Emily Dickinson, and more. Margulis was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983, received the prestigious National Medal of Science in 1999, and her papers are permanently archived at the Library of Congress. Less than a month before her untimely death, Margulis was named one of the twenty most influential scientists alive - one of only two women on this list, which include such scientists as Stephen Hawking, James Watson, and Jane Goodall.
The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader by David Pitt,Paul R. Samson Pdf
The Reader is the first comprehensive history of the noosphere and biosphere. Drawing on classical influences, modern parallels, and insights into the future, the Reader traces the emergence of noosphere and biosphere concepts within the concept of environmental change. Reproducing material from seminla works, both past and present, key ideas and writings of prominent thinkers are presented, including Bergson, Vernadsky, Lovelock, Russell, Needham, Huxley, Medawar, Toynbee and Boulding, and extensive introductory pieces bu the editors drawattention to common themes and competing ideas. Focussing on issues of origins, theories, parallels and potential, the discussions place issues in a broad context, compare and contrast central concepts with those of the Gaia hypothesis, sustainability and global change, and examine the potential application of noospheric ideas to current debates about culture, education and technology in such realms as the Internet, space exploration, and the emergence of super-consciousness. Literally the `sphere of mind or intellect', the noosphere is aprt of the `realm of the possible' in human affairs, where there is a conscious effort to tackle global issues The noosphere concept captures a number of key contemporary issues - social evolution, global ecology, Gaia, deep ecology and global environmental change - contributing to ongoing debates concerning the implications of emerging technologies.
In 1972, when James Lovelock first proposed the Gaia hypothesis--the idea that the Earth is a living organism that maintains conditions suitable for life--he was ridiculed by the scientific establishment. Today Lovelock's revolutionary insight, though still extremely controversial, is recognized as one of the most creative, provocative, and captivating scientific ideas of our time. James Lovelock tells for the first time the whole story of this maverick scientist's life and how it served as a unique preparation for the idea of Gaia. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Lovelock himself and unprecedented access to his private papers, John and Mary Gribbin paint an intimate and fascinating portrait of a restless, uniquely gifted freethinker. In a lifetime spanning almost a century, Lovelock has followed a career path that led him from chemistry, to medicine, to engineering, to space science. He worked for the British secret service and contributed to the success of the D-Day landings in World War II. He was a medical experimenter and an accomplished inventor. And he was working with NASA on methods for finding possible life on Mars when he struck upon the idea of Gaia, conceiving of the Earth as a vast, living, self-regulating system. Deftly framed within the context of today's mounting global-warming crisis, James Lovelock traces the intertwining trajectories of Lovelock's life and the famous idea it brought forth, which continues to provoke passionate debate about the nature and future of life on our planet.
Mycelium Running is a manual for the mycological rescue of the planet. That’s right: growing more mushrooms may be the best thing we can do to save the environment, and in this groundbreaking text from mushroom expert Paul Stamets, you’ll find out how. The basic science goes like this: Microscopic cells called “mycelium”--the fruit of which are mushrooms--recycle carbon, nitrogen, and other essential elements as they break down plant and animal debris in the creation of rich new soil. What Stamets has discovered is that we can capitalize on mycelium’s digestive power and target it to decompose toxic wastes and pollutants (mycoremediation), catch and reduce silt from streambeds and pathogens from agricultural watersheds (mycofiltration), control insect populations (mycopesticides), and generally enhance the health of our forests and gardens (mycoforestry and myco-gardening). In this comprehensive guide, you’ll find chapters detailing each of these four exciting branches of what Stamets has coined “mycorestoration,” as well as chapters on the medicinal and nutritional properties of mushrooms, inoculation methods, log and stump culture, and species selection for various environmental purposes. Heavily referenced and beautifully illustrated, this book is destined to be a classic reference for bemushroomed generations to come.
The emergence of modern sciences in the seventeenth century profoundly renewed our understanding of nature. For the last three centuries new ideas of nature have been continually developed by theology, politics, economics, and science, especially the sciences of the material world. The situation is even more unstable today, now that we have entered an ecological mutation of unprecedented scale. Some call it the Anthropocene, but it is best described as a new climatic regime. And a new regime it certainly is, since the many unexpected connections between human activity and the natural world oblige every one of us to reopen the earlier notions of nature and redistribute what had been packed inside. So the question now arises: what will replace the old ways of looking at nature? This book explores a potential candidate proposed by James Lovelock when he chose the name 'Gaia' for the fragile, complex system through which living phenomena modify the Earth. The fact that he was immediately misunderstood proves simply that his readers have tried to fit this new notion into an older frame, transforming Gaia into a single organism, a kind of giant thermostat, some sort of New Age goddess, or even divine Providence. In this series of lectures on 'natural religion,' Bruno Latour argues that the complex and ambiguous figure of Gaia offers, on the contrary, an ideal way to disentangle the ethical, political, theological, and scientific aspects of the now obsolete notion of nature. He lays the groundwork for a future collaboration among scientists, theologians, activists, and artists as they, and we, begin to adjust to the new climatic regime.
