Talk:Gaia theory (biology)

that the Earth's biosphere tends to [homeorhic balances]?

Really?

See:

• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Homeorhic+balances%22
• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Homeorhic+balance%22
• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Homeorhic%22

Now I can't find this phrase on the Web, or even Usenet, please tell me where this term is used. Perhaps it is a new scientific term? Please provice cites.

The Anome

Yup, I had a typo of a typo. Whee. OK, this is almost right now. Thanks for hte patience.

as far as I understood, "Gaia Theory" is Margulis's version among several Gaia theories. Hence "Margulis's version of Gaia Theory" is redundant. user:anthere

• Since general "Gaia theories"/"Gaia theory" (note lowercase t) are already mentioned earlier (i.e. non-Margulis "Gaia theories"), I don't think that it is necessarily clear that to a reader (since it's easy to miss noticing the capital "T") that it's Margulis' version that we are talking about. In fact, I think the whole article would be better renamed to "Gaia Theory (Lynn Margulis)" so that it is immediately clear from the article title that we are talking about her "Gaia Theory" as opposed to somebody else's "Gaia theory", or rename "Gaia theory" to something else. Having two pages with only a capitalization difference can easily lead to confusion. Lexor 21:32 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

Anthere, it appears that we are chasing our tails with editing this page. I was trying to move the page to the correct spelling of homeorhetic rather than homeorhic, but I inadvertantly created the redirect page back to the Lynn Margulis version, before I noticed that you had moved that! Sorry about that. This meant I couldn't move the page, but had to manually cut/paste. I think that "(homeorhic)" should link to "(homeorhetic)" not the other way around. I didn't realize we were editing the same page, so sorry about the confusion -- Lexor 02:37 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)

sorry :-(

What the heck does "homeorhic" mean? There is no reason to redirect this page to a parenthetically disambiguated term. Keep it simple. --mav

• Actually it was a misspelling of homeorhetic. I believe that people wanted to disambiguate the general term "Gaia theory" from the specific term "Gaia Theory", some people wanted "Gaia Theory" to be a redirect to "Gaia theory". I'm confused as to where things stand right now, as I was just trying to fix the spelling mistake moving the page to "Gaia Theory (homeorhetic)" -- Lexor 03:11 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)

It is confusing and misleading to have three sepaarte pages on the Gaia idea. We should combine them into one. (And of course, maintain the distinction between the general concept, and different scientist's specific formulations of the concept.) I plan on doing this myself; any objections? RK 23:19 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

absolutely. I *strongly* object. User:anthere

Um, why do you insist on having three separately titled pages for the same topic, with almost identical names? I do not understand. Would you then agree that we could one article titled "Gaia theory", and rename the other two something like "Gaia (Lovelock version)" and "Gaia (Margulis version)" RK 15:07 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Agreed, at the very least they should have more distinct names. Theory with a capital "T" just doesn't set this page much apart from Gaia theory. Is there a particular reason you object to merging them into a single article, with separate sections for the various theories? It's particularly ridiculous that Gaia hypothesis begins with the sentence "The Gaea hypothesis is the theory..." Other theories tend to get a single-article overview. See, for example, Theory of evolution or Fundamental theorem of calculus. If one article suffices for those, it should certainly suffice for Gaia theory. -- Wapcaplet 15:30 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

imho, the Theory of evolution is awfully short and unsufficient. And, if you look carefully, it leads to a series of secondary articles dealing with some of the theories, just as Gaia is doing.

I insist the three pages be separated for the sake of clarity. Though based on the same *initial* theory, the Theory and the Hypothesis diverge quite a lot. It is much clearer to keep different concepts, different formulations from different people at different times on different pages. There is no "one" gaia idea as you indicate, there are several. Putting them together would just bring unnecessary confusion. No, after reflecting, I do not agree with the renaming you propose. It is no good to name a theory by the name of someone. Fist because, an alive author can change her mind later on, and years later propose another theory. This would not invalidate the existance of the first theory, but invalidate the fact the initial inventor does not agree with the theory anymore. Second, because even if the bases of a theory are developped by a first person, it can be lead much further by a second author who might ultimately bring even more to the theory than the initial author. Then, why would the theory be named by the first author ? Look at Theory of evolution for support. Would you support Evolution (Darwin version)[?], Evolution (Lamarck version)[?] ? No, because, there are many evolutionary theories, most being compatibles with the others. And finally, because, these theories and hypothesis are not known under the Margulis Theory or the Lovelock Theory, but under the Gaia Theory and Gaia Hypothesis. If only for this point, it makes sense to identify articles topics under the name by which they are called.

Keeping these pages does not improve clarity. In fact, your actions are obfuscating the issues.

Which actions ? Talking on a talk page ? *excuse me there* Ant

And I don't think anyone here is stating that we should unilaterally name a theory after someone.

who is anyone ? Please, cite names here. Who has been saying anything except you and Wapcaplet ? Ant

Rather, you are saying that different people have totally different conceptions of Gaia,

no. The articles are saying that. Obviously. Have you read them ? Ant

and you insist on keeping them as separate articles.

well, you insist on reunited them. So what ? Ant

Therefore, we must give these articles names that represent their content.

Therefore, in fact, adding homeorhesis would represent their content more than saying Margulis really. Ant

Right now their names are misleading, and confusing. Your proposed names, however, make things even worse. Most people don't even know what those words mean!

I am ready to admit most people would not understand these words. However, when you state people are confused, I read "you" are confused. Could you precise who is confused ? Ant

We need to use names that people already use, that people will be likely to seach for. BTW, you are mistaken when you say that these names are not known as Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis and Margulis' Gaia hypothesis. While phrased in different ways, they certainly are referred to in this way, including in many college and high school textbooks! RK 19:39 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

many...that is quite a good reference. Margulis work is not about an Hypothesis, it is a Theory. Ant

Most science textbooks disagree with the way that Anthere is trying to organize this information. Most science textbooks discuss the Gaia issue by having just one section (usually titled "Gaia hypothesis" followed by a breakdown of how different people view this issue. It seems to me that the consensus of contributors here is that it is valid to combine these articles into one page, and only one person is dead set against it. RK 19:39 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

three contributors are speaking here. I am for keeping them apart. Wapcaplet said I'm not objecting so much to the separation of Gaia theories into three articles as I am to the naming scheme. You said I will reunite them. This is not precisely what I would call a consensus among contributors. Ant

Most science textbooks disagree with the way that Anthere is trying to organize this information. Most science textbooks discuss the Gaia issue by having just one section (usually titled "Gaia hypothesis" followed by a breakdown of how different people view this issue. It seems to me that the consensus of contributors here is that it is valid to combine these articles into one page, and only one person is dead set against it. RK 19:39 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hoom. Not to be hasty, but, "science textbooks" are not the last word here. The general idea of a Gaia theory goes back a long way and includes some very early spiritual and cognitive views. Johannes Kepler, Lewis Thomas[?] and Buckminster Fuller, Teilhard de Chardin, Lee Smolin, for instance had very specific ideas of what it meant for a biosphere to be like organism, or part of a whole universe that was like one, or for us to live inside either (biosphere or universe). There is overlap with politics, with cosmology (via Anthropic Principle) and theology. Western biology and ecology as now understood do not "own" the concept of "Gaia" or a "theory" about it. It would be scientism to claim that they do. EofT

The danger is that the merged article will then lose all this context and be censored down strictly to the issues Lynn Margulis and other scientific ecologists talk about. At the very least, one must be clear about "gaia theory in cosmology", "gaia theory in politics", "gaia theory in economics", "gaia theory in ecology", "gaia theory in biology", "gaia theory as propaganda". It is really hard also to separate this from similar issues in evolution - maybe a revisiting of all those articles is also required, as there seems to be no gaia theory that is not ultimately talking about evolutionary concepts. In particular Teilhard de Chardin laid out the idea of molecules cooperating to form life, up to them forming complex organisms like us viewing the whole biosphere (ecology) and whole universe (cosmology), as a single evolutionary process. That is the only way to introduce a truly general article, but it would seem to endorse de Chardin's view, so, at least two articles one on the Gaia theory in biology[?] in particular, and one on Gaia theory in general, might be advisable. That keeps science criteria separate from those others. Hm? EofT

I suggested some time ago for clarity some were asking for, that the names be changed by adding (homeorhesis) and (homeostasis) at the end of current names, for these are *precisely* the differences between both. This was focusing on the differences between the theories (permanent difference), rather than focusing on the initial authors (temporary difference). I think putting the three articles all together will be *very* confusing at best.

Adding (homeorhesis) and (homeostasis) at the end would be excellent. I have no particular concern about whether the articles are named after their initial authors, since as you suggest, the theories may change dramatically over time. As for Theory of evolution being insufficient - this is because most of evolution is not theory, but science and fact, hence the majority of it is expounded at evolution.

Some time ago, following disagreement on other articles, little fat budda tried to merge all these articles together. He stated it was not proper that capitalization be kept in titles. Hence that Gaia theory and Gaia Theory could not be kept. I then moved the titles to names such as Gaia Theory (homeorhetic). My move was immediately and with no discussion deleted by Maverick, for two reasons as I understood : first he did not know what homeorhetic meant and second he thought these articles did not need any disambigation. There is little a non-sysop can do when a sysop decide the new title proposed is not good and just delete it with no further discussion. However, since Little Budda dropped the case, I was glad the titles stayed as they have been for more than a year. I fear should these pages be renamed, the new name will probably be deleted again. But I appreciate you agree with them :-).

Additionally, as you point out, there are many different theories of evolution - and yet we don't see Theory of evolution, Theory of Evolution, Theory Of EVOlution[?], Th30Ry of 3Vo1uT1on[?] etc., they are all brought together under the banner of Theory of evolution, with articles on closely related theories having more appropriately named articles, such as Natural selection. I'm not objecting so much to the separation of Gaia theories into three articles as I am to the naming scheme. -- Wapcaplet 18:22 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I understand. What do you suggest then ? The point is it would also be okay to me to rename Gaia theory -> Gaia theories as precisely there are several. But you would probably insist again on naming conventions :-). The fact is it is easier in Theory of evolution, as the children articles have proper names, such as Natural selection. Problem is, this "natural selection" is precisely the terminology used outside of wikipedia. that is the real term. In this case, the real term is Gaia Theory, so why would we rename a theory known under that name to an unknown name, just because of some naming conventions ?

You may also want to look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization). -- Wapcaplet

of course. My first contribution to Wikipedia was in march or april 2002. More than a year ago. I also set a good deal of french conventions. However, I think a convention is ...a convention...not a rule :-). look, convention for some animal species is indeed that capitalization can be used on the second word. And sometimes, plural titles are accepted just as well. So, why not renaming theory in theories perhaps ?

I'm familiar with the use of Theorem (capital T) in some areas, particularly in mathematics; when a generalized theory (hypothesis) becomes formalized and proven, it is often capitalized: Theorem of calculus, Four-Color Theorem, etc., but typically these two things are distinguished between theory (the model used for studying something) and Theorem, which is something which can be proven, given a set of axioms. On Wikipedia, most of the mathematical articles seem to use a lowercase "t" on these.

All of this is just my observation, though. I suppose what I am curious about is how, exactly, Gaia Theory is distinct from Gaia theory. Reading some other articles on the web (such as this (http://www.hollowtop.com/cls_html/thestore/Lovelock.htm) and this (http://www.gaianet.fsbusiness.co.uk/gaiatheory)), I get the impression that "theory" and "Theory" are interchangable. According to the articles we have now on Wikipedia, Margulis' Theory says that the earth is homeorhetic, rather than homeostatic, but aside from that I don't really understand what the difference is. I'd be gracious if you could give me some other sources that discuss how the Gaia hypothesis (or Gaea hypothesis) and Gaia Theory are distinct from Gaia theory as a whole, or which indicate that the capital T is of significance in the branch of theory begun by Margulis. I must admit I know very little about the field.

As Entmoot explained rightly so, the theory (right now, the small t) is in reality a set of theories on the topic, some of these having quite ancient roots. It is not one concept but a collection of views from very different people of different cultures. Last century, Lovelock and Margulis worked in the light of recent (at that time) knowledge acquired and set an Hypothesis, which is then one of the multiple theories. They set that Hypothesis with observations (Lovelock was a chemist, so it was a lot about the evolution of the atmosphere, such as the fact the composition of the atmosphere has been staying stable for a ages, in spite of volcanic activity, and mostly life drastic evolution). Lovelock propose James Lovelock's proposal that the Earth's climate is homeostasis. In other words, there are self regulating mechanisms which insure its stability.

Margulis, a biologist, (look endosymbiosis), further worked on the topic. She proposed that the climate was not really homeostatic, but homeorhetic (in short, in the long term, the composition of the atmosphere and hydrosphere was stable, but in the short term, the composition is oscillating between set points). This claim is generally considered much more acceptable than Lovelock one. ant

Okay, I get that. I'm fuzzy on what makes Margulis' Gaia Theory (big T) special enough, above and beyond the spectrum of other theories, to warrant its own article. I understand that her claim is generally more acceptable than Lovelock's; is it more acceptable than the other theories, as well? (boy this talk page is getting messy... too many conversations happening at once :)

And to RK - maybe we should try to resolve things here before we start changing the articles. I don't think we have anything near consensus, yet. -- Wapcaplet 20:38 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

As for using "theories" - this would also go against naming conventions, since nearly every other article on other theories is just at "XXX theory", so I don't see how it's really any better than what we have. -- Wapcaplet 19:50 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)0

You are correct. It is bizarre and untenable to have a Gaia theory (lowercase t) and Gaia Theory (uppercase T) article. No scientists use this terminology, zero, zip. I cannot understand why this set of articles is so fucked up. RK 20:16 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

EofT writes: "Not to be hasty, but, "science textbooks" are not the last word here. The general idea of a Gaia theory goes back a long way and includes some very early spiritual and cognitive views. Johannes Kepler, ....instance had very specific ideas of what it meant for a biosphere to be like organism, or part of a whole universe that was like one, or for us to live inside either (biosphere or universe)."

No one disputes this. I was only talking about how this article should be organized. RK 20:16 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

EofT writes "Western biology and ecology as now understood do not "own" the concept of "Gaia" or a "theory" about it. It would be scientism to claim that they do. EofT"

There is no such thing as scientism. That word was coined by religious fundamentalists who did not understand how science works, and who were scared that science may reveal facts about the world which might challenge some of their preconceived notions. This word is also now use by radical pseudo-philosophers ("deconstructionists") who showhow imagine that science doesn't actually tells us about the world we live in, but that their literature somehow mysteriously can produce such truths. Some scientists, skeptics and humanists see this word as an ad-homenin attack against anyone who uses the scientific method to learn about the world. RK 20:16 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Your view seems, itself, to be [[scientism]: science having monopoly on truth. EofT

EofT writes "The danger is that the merged article will then lose all this context and be censored down strictly to the issues Lynn Margulis and other scientific ecologists talk about."

What danger is this? I don't see anyone refusing to discuss these concepts. All I see are some people who wish to distinguish how scientists use this term. BTW, no traditional religion used the term "Gaia theory" in their cosmology or mythology. You are seeing an example of religions grabbing onto the terminology of a new scientific concept, and trying to claim "this is what we taught all along". RK 20:16 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The name Gaia is itself religious terminology appropriated by science. There are similar goddesses or Earth Mother figures in most religions. EofT

EofT writes "It is really hard also to separate this from similar issues in evolution - maybe a revisiting of all those articles is also required, as there seems to be no gaia theory that is not ultimately talking about evolutionary concepts."

I agree that some forms of the Gaia idea may be necessary for evolution to have occured, and this really should be discussed in the appropriate articles here on Wikipedia. Many college textbooks already do this. RK 20:16 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

College textbooks don't have the unique answer, and neither do have scientists. Which is also a quite improper comment as I am one. What you are currently doing is called censorship of points of view which don't fit your. I would also call that refusal to discuss and properly cooperate. Ant

You are paranoid. No one here, let alone I, is censoring any point of view in these articles. That charge is a flat-out lie. I am only pointing out that you are making up bizarre names for these theories that no one else in the world uses. Worse, you are cutting apart a scientific article on Gaia into three separate articles, using a bizarre uppercase and lowercase spelling system, which violates all Wikipedia naming conventions. RK 23:28 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I don't own these articles more than you do. I am ready to discuss changes. And when we come to an agreement, that changes are made. But here, you are just pretending everyone is agreeing with you, when you are in fact alone. And you are refusing to discuss anything at all. This is not an acceptable behavior imho. ----

I have a totally crazy idea. How about we call this article (the one with a capital T) Modern Gaia theory[?]. This is the way it's referred to in Gaia theory, and clearly the word "modern" is general enough to encapsulate the fact that this is probably the most scientific branch of Gaia theory to date. Whether it starts with Margulis or Lovelock I don't really care, but I think it's definitely a better title than (homeorhetic) or (Marguils') or whatever. Thoughts? -- Wapcaplet 20:54 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

And, as if this page is not large enough already, here's a pretty good article that covers most of modern Gaia theory:

http://www.gaianet.fsbusiness.co.uk/gaiatheory

-- Wapcaplet 20:59 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I ask time for consideration. You asked for links. Here is one you might look at from the library of Arizona State University (where I spent some time).

http://www.asu.edu/lib/noble/earth/gaia.htm

I give up. I am not letting Anthere cut our article into three, with almost EXACTLY THE SAME CONTENT, and then confuse readers with his own unqiue bizarrely lower-case and upper-case titled names. If he has some sort of lower-case, upper-case obsession, let him get help offline. RK

Okay you two, calm down. Maybe you guys need to both take a break and do something offline for a while. These articles are not worth having a brain hemmorhage over :) -- Wapcaplet 23:52 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Anthere and RK, please consider reading Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot. -- Wapcaplet 23:57 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The anger is all one way. I am letting Anthere add what he likes. So are you. But Anthere is trying to delete everything I write. He has no right to claim ownership over this article. He now is claiming that everything I writ is POV and false...but tellingly, he can't provide a single example of what he disputes. Hmm, why not? I am willing to discuss the issue...but he refuses to. He won't say a single word about the content of any article; he just keeps doing mass-reversions. We can't discuss the issue if he refuses to explain his mass-deletions. That is vandalism. RK

See RK. You started yesterday willing to have one article. While we discussing renaming, you chose to massively and unilateraly change everything, all the while pretending there was a consensus over this, when there was none. You got your unique article. I see no pb with you editing. But you made massive changes all at once. Some are perfectly ok; some are not at all. When there are so many changes, I can't find my way. As you mentionned it so nicely, I don't read well english, yes ? You don't even leave me time to edit the article or to explain quietly what is wrong. You just keep insulting me on comments, while I do not. You say I am a vandal. Fine. Ask sysops to ban me. No problem. I let the article that way, because it is too late anyway. But I refuse to work with somebody insulting me and saying I am unable to understand english, who pretend I create 5 identical articles when this is pure crap, claiming I own the article, when I hardly ever edited it. Stop pretending you let me edit it, while you revert each time with further liars and insults. Be happy, do it your way. ant

I'm getting it from both sides. In all honesty I have no interest in trying to mediate the war you guys have going on. I just think you should both take a break and come back later. You're both calling each other vandals, neither of you seem to think there is anything to discuss... I don't want to participate in the accusations and criticism. Relax, watch TV, go have a cup of tea, come back when you're not so emotionally involved. -- Wapcaplet 00:25 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I have been doing some more reading on this topic, and have disovered that many claims Anthere has been making in the Gaia articles are incorrect. Anthere has saying that we must refer to certain ancient religious and mystical views of the Earth and/or cosmos as "Gaia theory". In point of fact, the people who developed those ideas never referred to those ideas with this terminology! More to the point, these ideas have no relation Gaia thoery. Even today most English speakers do not use this terminology for those ideas. Anther is mistaken on this point. RK

More problematic is her curious claim that Dr James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis is based upon these earlier mystic and religious beliefs. In point of fact, Dr. Lovelock says no such thing. Lovelock is an atmospheric scientists, and his Gaia hypothesis grew out of his study of atmospheric gases. He did *not* use science to build upon earlier mystical beliefs; he created his own hypothesis by applying ideas from Biology to findings from atmospheric science. Anthere's claims that all these religious and mystical views must be viewed as precursor's to Lovelock's hypothesis are incorrect; they seem to part of her own belief system, and they have no basis in historical fact. Having watched a detailed interview with Lovelock on how he developed his hypothesis, and having read two different accounts by him on the same topic, I can say with some certainty that Anthere's beliefs about the origins of the Gaia hypothesis are totally off-base. RK

Now, it may be true that a tiny number of radical left-wing ecology activists (for example, Gaiains) have developed certain religious and/or political beliefs based on Lovelock's ideas. They may even have mistakenly come to believe that Lovelock didn't originate the Gaia hypothesis, but merely added science to previous mystical belief systems. But so what? We can certainly mention this set of beliefs in the article on Gaians, but it would be grossly inapprorpiate to jam it into an article on atmospheric science and biology, i.e. the Gaia theory article. RK

Finally, Anthere keeps demanding that since some people mix together science, radical politics, and these new-age belief systems, we are somehow obligated to cram all of this into the science articles. She is plainly wrong. We in Wikipedia already have a convention for dealing with this; we already have a clear and working precedent. Consider the topics of Biological evolution and Quantum Mechanics: As many of you know, these are modern scientific theories, and our articles on these topics reflect this fact. Yet many new-age writers have come to believe that Quantum mechanics and/or evolution somehow are related to ancient mystical and religious belief systems. As many of you know, many new-age folks try to connect Quantum Mechanics with Daoist or Buddhist philosophy, and claim that it is "proof" of the validity of these religions. I have also seen Orthodox Jews try to fuse Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) with Quantum mechanics. But so what? Frankly, there are many individuals and groops that insist that Quantum menchanics or evolution has some mystical or political significance. Do we then rewrite encycloepdias to make them in lin with the religious or political demands of these groups or individuals? No. That would be a violation of our NPOV policy. RK

What we have always done for these issues is to create new articles on these poltical or religious groups, and explain their viewpoints. We have always done this in the past, it makes it easy to stay NPOV, and provides useful disambiguation. Can you imagine how misleading it would to start pushing mystical, religious topics, and political topics, into our articles on Biological evolution, and on Quantum Mechanics? Why then should we do the same for the Gaia hypothesis? (Also called the Gaia theory.) Answer - we shouldn't. It would confusing and a violation of NPOV. RK

From discussions on the Wiki-English list it is looking like the following disambiguation scheme should be implemented:

Gaia: This is a disambiguation page. The term Gaia may refer to

Gaia (mythology)[?] - Discussion of the Greek and Roman goddeess.

Gaia theory - A group of scientific theories about how life on Earth may regulate the planet's biosphere to make it more hospitable to life. This discusses all scientific views on the subject in general, including the views of Drs. James Lovelock, Lynn Margulis, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, etc.

Gaia hypothesis- A subset of the above article; this is a discussion of Dr. James Lovelock's ideas on Gaia theory.

Gaia theory analogs[?] - A discussion of proto-scientific, mystical and religious views that some people believe are related to Gaia theory.

Gaians - A discussion of the small left-wing radical political and environmentalist group. (Of course, other articles could be made as well, if needed.)

We must not push mystical, political or religious ideology into our science articles on Gaia theory, Biological evolution, or Quantum Mechanics, etc. All I am asking is that we continue to follow the same disambiguation and NPOV policy that we also have followed. Is this clear? RK 23:34 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)