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batmura wrote:Excuse my ignorance, but what does "gaia" mean?

Wikipedia wrote:Gaia philosophy (named after Gaia, Greek goddess of the Earth) is a broadly inclusive term for related concepts that living organisms on a planet will affect the nature of their environment – to make it more suitable for life. This set of theories holds that all organisms on a planet regulate the biosphere to the benefit of the whole. The Gaia concept draws a connection between the survivability of a species, (hence its evolutionary course) and their usefulness to the survival of other species.

While there were a number of precursors to Gaia theory, the first scientific form of this idea was proposed as the Gaia hypothesis by James Lovelock, a UK chemist, in 1970. The Gaia hypothesis deals with the concept of homeostasis, and claim the resident life forms of a host planet coupled with their environment have acted and act as a single, self-regulating system. The system includes the near-surface rocks, the soil, and the atmosphere. While controversial at first, various forms of this idea became accepted to some degree by many within the scientific community.