James Lovelock

[Zermelo]

I thought that the recent passing of James Lovelock might have attracted more attention. Perhaps he had become less box office than he was twenty years ago.

The only obit I've seen so far was in the Telegraph, which I thought was too generous in its assessment of the support for the Gaia hypothesis in the scientific community. My understanding is that the consensus is still firmly against it.

I can accept that there might be that kind of interaction between organisms and their environment within a very limited context - I'm remembering something about certain kinds of seaweed giving off chemicals that affect their local microclimates in a beneficial way - but I've never been convinced that an entire planetary ecosystem could evolve that way (I think Dawkins and others have given arguments against it on Darwinist grounds). I put him into that category of "scientists who got obsessed and lost their way", along with the likes of Eric Laithwaite, with his attempt to re-write mechanics.

With hindsight, I think his environmental concerns were well-placed, and in particular I think he was brave to speak up for nuclear power on global warming grounds, when most of his fellow environmentalists were opposed.

[Nik271]

The Guardian has one on their web page 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/27/james-lovelock-obituary

On the whole I consider Lovelock to be a positive figure, especially for bringing attention to our relentless environment destruction.

Whether there is some overall 'Gaia planetary evolution' is I think beside the point, there does not have to be one to see where we are going just by our own actions 😞 

 

[Zeta Reticulan]

Yeah, I think it is a matter of being less 'box office' than he would have been back in the day.

In some respects he reminded me of Arthur Koestler. Who also tended to be outside of the orthodoxy and who regularly seemed to challenge the prevailing scientific paradigm. Especially his support for Lamarckian evolution. Although with Koestler it was probably more a case of deliberate figurative cats among metaphorical (and possibly imaginary) pigeons. Not that evolutionary theory is done and dusted.

I've always liked the Gaia hypothesis as it probably appeals to my inner hippy. Well, that, and I've probably read far too much Jung and Joseph Campbell.

[PeterC65]

I read his Gaia books many year ago and enjoyed them. I agree that he may have taken things too far but his central point is sound. Humanity does not properly understand its place in the Universe and within the spectrum that is life. Your post @Zermelo about the search for intelligent life made me think again about whether human life is really intelligent. My own hypothesis is that so called intelligent life burns itself out very quickly and that is why we struggle to find it in the Universe.

[Zermelo]

24 minutes ago, PeterC65 said:

so called intelligent life burns itself out very quickly and that is why we struggle to find it in the Universe

Agreed, I understand that's one of the more hotly debated parameters in the Drake equation.

 

3 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Whether there is some overall 'Gaia planetary evolution' is I think beside the point, there does not have to be one to see where we are going just by our own actions

Yes, I'm certainly with him on the environmental point.

I think another reason I reacted against the Gaia thing was that I blame it for inspiring Isaac Asimov to write that awful sequel to his Foundation series! (though I have no evidence that it was done consciously)

 

[Chandra]

History is full of scientists far from the orthodoxy of their time, but the fact that their reputation in the scientific community suffered does not necessarily call into question the rigor of their thinking. Dissidence in a hypocritical world where the flag of freedom of thought is hoisted but is virtually controlled by one way thought, is frowned upon. 

The truth is that much of the progress in scientific knowledge has come from "bold" who have dared to think beyond the limits that gripped their colleagues in each era. From Aristarchus to Kepler, passing through Copernicus or Galileo, without the challenge they posed to the "status quo" of their time, our conception of the Universe would not be the same. The very same Einstein appealed to the power of the imagination as the engine of scientific progress. What today may seem like nonsense to us, perhaps tomorrow we will find a fit for it in the cosmos. He himself was not imaginative enough at the outset to break with secular thinking about the immutability of the Universe (which is why he established the idea of the cosmological constant), or to accept the seemingly chaotic quantum randomness. There are precisely these fields today, quantum physics and cosmology, that are the most challenging and risky in terms of scientific rectitude.

Science, without imagination or intuition, circumscribed only and exclusively to phenomenological observation, would need a million years for each small advance. Creativity is not only an artistic virtue, it is also a scientific one. By the way, next month will be the 21st anniversary of the death of another illustrious outsider of science, our friend Fred Hoyle.

[Chandra]

9 hours ago, Zeta Reticulan said:

Siempre me ha gustado la hipótesis de Gaia, ya que probablemente atraiga a mi hippie interior. Bueno, eso, y probablemente he leído demasiado a Jung y Joseph Campbell.

Wow! Jung... A true renaissance man... 🧐

[JeremyS]

A great man. I had the honour to meet him a couple of times. Immense intellect and immense humanity 

[Zeta Reticulan]

1 minute ago, Chandra said:

Wow! Jung... A true renaissance man... 🧐

Renaissance?

Purportedly he wasn't much of a drummer. 

[Chandra]

12 hours ago, Zeta Reticulan said:

Renaissance?

Purportedly he wasn't much of a drummer. 

😅 The music of Renaissance might have been a better soundtrack for Lovelock than for Jung... I meant that Jung seemed like a character from the Italian Renaissance because of his large list of interests,  infinite curiosity and his great later influence in the Occident.. And don't be ironic, who knows if in his spare time (if he had any) he might have played drums in a jazz band...

[Zeta Reticulan]

1 hour ago, Chandra said:

😅 The music of Renaissance might have been a better soundtrack for Lovelock than for Jung... I meant that Jung seemed like a character from the Italian Renaissance because of his large list of interests,  infinite curiosity and his great later influence in the Occident.. And don't be ironic, who knows if in his spare time (if he had any) he might have played drums in a jazz band...

I see Jung more as 60's counter culture psychedelia than jazz.