Another paper online regarding the Gaia hypotheis. This one seperates the
Lovelock metaphorical use of Gaia as a weak Gaia and asserts a strong Gaia,
one that involves a strong case for autoevolution using inference, which is
ultimately testable.
http://www.bayside.net/NPO/BMI/autevol/ghw_toc.htm#top
John
Useful quotes:
"While Gaia may be most often described phenomenalistically and
metaphorically, we may still be able to infer both new assumptions and
useful hypotheses from these descriptions, as did the neo-Darwinists in
defining natural selection and the mechanism of inheritance from more
general concepts of evolution. Strong forms of Gaia involve a view of life
as a creative and active
agent."
"Traditional theory treats biological organization as an epiphenomenon, that
is, a
result of other causal processes, but concepts of Gaia unanimously describe
life itself as an organizing causal process."
Kineman, John Jay. 1997. "Toward a special and general theory of
autevolution." Boulder: Bear Mountain Institute. HTML publication on the
World Wide Web.
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