WHAT IS GAIA?
The following description has been transcribed from GaiaSur website.
In the 1970's, Dr. James Lovelock was hired to design chemical tests to detect life. The same would be assembled in a future probe sent to Mars. In the course of this task, it became necessary to define what life in a broader sense as it may be recognized on our planet Earth. Lovelock and developed a possible operational definition: it could be considered "live" to any system that generates and maintains internal sub-systems to help you order and maintain constant internal conditions (homeostasis capacity).
One of the conclusions of this definition is that living things can be kept in a steady state, called steady state, which is different from equilibrium.
In subsequent research, Dr. Lovelock noted that certain variables; of our planet (the salinity of the oceans, atmospheric composition and temperature, etc..) Maintain constant values \u200b\u200b(stationary) but not the balance. Dr. Lovelock suggested then that the interactions of living things with each other and their environment were responsible for the maintenance of the steady states.
Then, if we consider "alive" to those systems that maintain different steady states from equilibrium, generating and maintaining ad hoc systems, if conditions "inside" of the earth are constant (and far from equilibrium), and if it appears that some important environmental variables Land values \u200b\u200bremain steady, thanks to living organisms and their interactions , then ...
... Earth can be considered a living being.
Dr. Lovelock is a very creative and poetic type. Instead of calling his theory "Homeostasis of the physico-chemical variables and their interrelationships etc land. Etc ...." called Gaia Theory, in memory of Gaea, the earth goddess of the Greeks, similar to the Pacha Mama American.
According to the Gaia theory, the conditions currently prevailing in the world are not merely the result of physical and chemical reactions but are well maintained by all life on Earth (the biosphere) and the interaction with their environment.
could explain this with a simple analogy between the planet and our own human body. Each species would then be analogous to an "organ" and the interaction between them keep our temperature (despite the cold outside), our pH and blood sugar level (although food intake varies in its composition), etc. . as well as salinity of the seas, the temperature and composition of the atmosphere, etc. on Earth.
However, humans are much more than a pile of bodies: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
In this view, all are related and the disappearance of a species is a tragedy for all the others, much as the loss of an organ is terrible for our own body.
This approach seems to err on the side philosophical, not rejecting pragmatic approaches quite the contrary, the power. From a utilitarian point of view (genetics and its applications in medicine for example), the disappearance of a plant or animal species and its genome (all genes) means the potential loss of millions of treasures unknown. It also explains why there are issues that require an interdisciplinary approach to be tackled successfully.
Among other things, this theory justifies not only the assessment, but the need for diversity to keep the global steady state, as each species meets one or more particular functions within the global symphony.
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