
Taking the Gaia Hypothesis Seriously - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/its-time-to-take-the-gaia-hypothesis-seriously
======
nkoren
If Earth is a living organism, then we -- with our understanding of rocketry
and biospherics -- would be its reproductive organs. Which means that the Gaia
is just beginning to reach sexual maturity.

Organisms hitting puberty are notoriously moody, weird, and confused,
alternating between bouts of idealism and self-destructiveness. Looking at the
state of the world today, I'd say the Gaia hypothesis, at least in this
respect, is holding up.

~~~
qbrass
If a dog is a living organism, then fleas -- as they gain the ability to jump
to other dogs -- would be it's reproductive organs. Which means that a dog
with fleas jumping off is just beginning to reach sexual maturity.

Organisms hitting puberty are notoriously moody, weird, and confused,
alternating between bouts of idealism and self-destructiveness. Looking at the
state of dogs crawling with fleas, I'd say the flea-bitten-dog hypothesis, at
least in this respect, is holding up.

~~~
nkoren
Touché -- Provided that, as part of the jumping-off process, the fleas are
figuring out how to grow new dogs. (Analogy: terraforming.)

~~~
qbrass
Flea larvae eat the feces of adult fleas containing undigested blood harvested
from the host. The adult flea's efforts have improved conditions for future
generations to thrive.

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dokein
This article is garbage in that it provides no scientific claims, nor is the
scientific community taking this claim seriously. "Exhibiting homeostasis of
some sort" is not a very high bar for evidence of life, otherwise every
corporation is biologically alive (just please don't ask our Supreme Court).

Honestly this was strongly uploaded in part because the community here is
weaker in biology -- a similarly garbage engineering article would never have
seen the front page.

~~~
ikurei
> "Exhibiting homeostasis of some sort" is not a very high bar for evidence of
> life, otherwise every corporation is biologically alive

But that doesn't disqualify homeostasis as evidence of life, as corporations
don't emerge except when living creatures create them.

Anyway, as I understood it, homeostasis is by definition a quality of living
beings. Many things have a tendency towards an equilibrium, and of course that
doesn't have to have anything to do with life.

Am I misunderstanding the claim?

~~~
dokein
A cough may be evidence for a tuberculosis infection, but it would be foolish
to take anyone who is coughing and say "hey! we should test for TB".
Homeostasis is a necessary but far from sufficient test for biological life.

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roesel
If there is no hypothesis, the idea cannot be proved or disproved. In that
case the approach equates with faith and it cannot (scientifically) be taken
seriously.

The article has a strong title, yet at least to me presents no arguments to
support it's claim.

~~~
knlje
I just wanted to add a counter point that there exists lots of serious(ly-
taken) science that cannot be based merely on hypotheses and on attempts of
proving or disproving those.

Each practical research project starts by defining the context and bounds of
research. It seems to me that he is proposing the adaptation of a more general
strategy when defining the context. He does not make any claims other than
that the limited context apparently present in some astrobiological,
geological, etc., studies might cause you to miss crucial things. A very hard
claim to prove or disprove a priori but this does not render the viewpoint
useless.

~~~
roesel
I do not think the viewpoint itself is useless. I was just trying to point out
that you cannot even attempt to prove it, since it is not a hypothesis. And
the title of that article strongly suggests it is a prove to convince the
reader.

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hedgew
You can sort of explain how life is in beautiful symbiosis with the planet it
resides on, but mostly this sort of perspectives cause harm. It's not science
and encourages magical thinking.

\- "Gaia" makes it easy to think we are bound to Earth, and that nature
protects Earth. There is no magical force that ties us to Earth, or a magical
force that keeps it liveable, it's just a lucky coincidence and a complex set
of systems. Maybe we stop global warming, and then a supervolcano erupts.

\- "Balance of ecosystems" creates the illusion that even the tiniest change
in nature will hurt it. We spend more time worrying about tigers going extinct
than an asteroid wiping out all life.

\- "Biodiversity" makes us think that more variety is always better. No
universal law rules that a single super-crop couldn't keep us happy and fed in
an environment without biodiversity. If we bring two of each species to a
space station, it won't be because of economic reasons. Wild animals and
plants do their best to destroy biodiversity constantly anyways.

\- "Nature knows" causes us to think that naturally occurring solutions are
better. For example the genetically engineered Golden Rice, which could save
millions of lives yearly, is a victim of this belief.

Similar flaws in thinking even cause most of the medical profession to only
see medicine as a way to treat disease instead of improving wellbeing. Ask
doctors and they'll tell you: all medicine has side-effects! If you gave
doctors a pill that eliminates the need for sleep without side effects, they
would only give it to people who are dying from insomnia.

------
Confusion

      The truth is, despite its widespread moniker, Gaia is not 
      really a hypothesis. It’s a perspective
    

Yes it is. However, the article does not explain, at least to me, what it
means to take that perspective 'seriously'. Everything that is described as
something that can be seen from that perspective are also reported by people
that would not describe themselves as looking from the Gaia perspective.

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amatic
I don't see how they relate biological homeostasis to climate. If homeostatic
systems are functioning, like in blood sugar or oxygen control, their values
are kept in a very tight range near the setpoint. In contrast, temperature has
varied greatly over the millennia, as have ocean acidity and other variables,
thereby showing Earth is very much not like an organism.

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vanattab
Wow. I have read a bunch of really good articles on nautil.us that I
discovered through HN. I have been thinking of getting the 2 year
digital/print subscription to support the type of journalism I want to see.
But um... this article is kinda making me reconsider.

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jameslk
Why stop there when by the same reasoning we can claim entire solar systems
and galaxies are living? At what point does that exercise become pointless?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Should I consider a glass of buffers a living thing?

[1]
[https://chem.libretexts.org/Core/Physical_and_Theoretical_Ch...](https://chem.libretexts.org/Core/Physical_and_Theoretical_Chemistry/Acids_and_Bases/Buffers)

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nightcracker
The Gaia "Hypothesis" makes no testable claims and can therefore be safely
dismissed immediately.

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golergka
From the description, it doesn't seem like a hypothesis - more like a way of
looking at things.

~~~
dmytrish
Exactly, the idea of mystical living Gaia does not have any scientific value.

The biosphere of Earth is indeed a huge and very complex system, but it's
pointless to "animate" it, it lives according to its own laws that should be
studied objectively, not according to some fuzzy analogies rooted in our bias
and perceptions (an example of a similar bias:
[https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Anthropomorphism](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Anthropomorphism)).

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amelius
Isn't reproduction one of the necessary conditions for life? How would that
apply to a planet?

~~~
jlebrech
It created us didn't it?

~~~
smsm42
For extremely wide definition of "created", yes. But that definition is not
very useful, since it implies pretty much no useful causal links, just the
mere fact "here's a bunch of matter, and here we are located in this place on
it". Yep, but so what?

