aia hypothesis was more acceptable to the scientific community, although, at this point, pretty much devoid of meaning.
 Enduring scientific criticism
Most of the systems used as examples or explanations to support this "hypothesis" make no sense in regard to the reality of how life has evolved and the environment has changed.
While, among other factors, life on Earth certainly alters the environment, the life that then is seen thriving evolved and adapted to do so, thus there is no magical mechanism that endlessly returns conditions to some "ideal" balance. This is easiest to see over longer terms - before plants started photosynthesizing, there was no free oxygen in the atmosphere - and when they did, there was a mass extinction of creatures to whom it was poisonous.
Therefore, many forms of life that survive in some niches can either be wiped out, or become much more successful, due to "life-made" or geologic or astrophysical changes to the environment.
Stephen Jay Gould criticized (and other scientists still criticize) Gaia hypothesis as merely an attempt to re-explain processes already explained by evolution, natural selection, and adaptation. Gould said that, in order for the hypothesis to hold, either of the following would have to be the case:
- Evolution processes that are guided by some "magical force," also known as "guided evolution", which is already rejected by the scientific community as being unverifiable and, thus, pseudoscience.
- Evolution processes that are guided by a system of adaptation, natural selection, and evolution. Wait! Science already accepts this as something else, something that needs no further explanation.
Gould then went further to dismiss it as "merely a metaphor for naturally occurring processes (referring to evolution).
Also, according to most scientific critics, especially Dawkins and Ford Doolittle, the Gaia hypothesis requires an ecological foresight and teleologism to be true, concepts that are not scientifically viable, and are considered about as scientific as intelligent design.
 Theory vs. hypothesis
Because of its inability to address the aforementioned enduring science against its claims, the Gaia hypothesis is regarded within the scientific community accordingly: as a hypothesis (and probably a failed one at that), and not as a fact, theory, or law. This contrasts with proponents of the concept, who have been known to call the hypothesis a "theory", even though it is antithetical to scientific terminology and is regarded by scientists as promoting pseudoscience.
 See also
- See the Wikipedia article on Gaia hypothesis.
- The Mother Earth Metaphor
- The Earth Isn't Sick, She's Pregnant
- Stages in the Evolution of Gaia (Earth)
- The Evolving Gaia Theory
- Evidence In Support Of A Gaian Earth
- Lovelock, James (2001), "Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist", (Oxford University Press)
- Margulis, Lynn (1998). Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London. ISBN 0-297-81740-X.
- Marshall, A (2002) The Unity of Nature, Imperial College Press, London.
- Turney, Jon (2003), Lovelock and Gaia:Signs of Life Icon Books, UK [ISBN 1-84046-458-5]
- Lovelock, J.E.; Margulis, L. (1974). "Atmospheric homeostasis by and for the biosphere- The Gaia hypothesis". Tellus 26 (1): 2–10.
- Volk, Tyler (2003), "Gaia's Body; Toward a Physiology of Earth" (MIT Press)
- S.J.Gould: Kropotkin was no crackpot. Natural History 106 (June 1997): 12-21
- ↑ A summary of the Gaia hypothesis
- ↑ The Gaia hypothesis and Climate Change
- ↑ The Gaia Hypothesis: Fact, Theory, and Wishful Thinking
- ↑ An example might be the ancient natural nuclear reactors of central and western Africa, which maintained a dynamic equilibrium continuously over some tens of millions of years.
- ↑ Link to an article about the Daisyworld simulation
- ↑ Doolittle, W. F. “Is Nature Really Motherly?” Coevolution Quarterly 29 (1981): 58–63
- ↑ Stephen Jay Gould: Kropotkin was no crackpot. Natural History 106 (June 1997): 12-21
- ↑ IS Gaia Theory a good idea