The Gaia Hypothesis The Gaia Hypothesis is a hypothesis that was developed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the late 1970's. James Lovelock is a British scientist, an atmospheric chemist, and also an inventor with an education in human physiology. Lynn Margulis was a microbiologist during the 1970's at Boston University. She also originated the theory of the eukaryotic cell arising as a result of endosymbiotic cell capture. This theory is the one that gave her the credibility to advance
The Gaia Hypothesis In the early 1960's, James Lovelock was invited by NASA to participate in the scientific research for evidence of life on Mars. His job was to design instruments, capable of detecting the presence of life, which could be sent on a spacecraft to Mars. This led him to think about what constitutes life, and how it can be detected. He decided that the most general characteristic of life was that it takes in energy and matter and discards waste products. He also reasoned
The Gaia hypothesis was expressed by James Lovelock in mid 1960s and published in a book in 1979.（Sean Chamberlin) The ancient Greek called their Earth goddess Gaia, James Lovelock had taken the idea of ancient Greek and named his hypothesis Gaia. The central theme for Gaia Hypothesis is that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating. Most simply expressed as “The Earth is Alive.”(Virtual Fossil Museum) If there are some inherent factors harmful to Earth
Gaia: Argument over a single word THESIS: Life on earth has been considered by some as a purposeful interaction tending toward ecological stability. However, when the scientific community led by James Lovelock tried to match this concept with science, it was (and continues to be) a dilemma. Introduction Whenever one hears the word Gaia, he or she will also hear life, goddess, purpose, ecology, and undoubtedly controversy. Not many topics have provoked more controversy among the scientific
The Relationship Between the Earth's Biota and Physical Environment in John Lovelock's book The Ages of Gaia John Lovelock in his book The Ages of Gaia presents an argument for a theory governing the relationship between the earth's biota and its physical environment. Lovelock holistic view of nature combines biology and geoclimatology as one science, which he calls geophysiology, "the study of living and non-living Earth as a single system (Lovelock 11)." Lovelock's theory states that life is
culminating in the rule of Zeus. The early parts of the poem revolve around Gaia, an anthropomorphized entity that is the physical presence on which all life resides on and also the mother to the first generation of gods. Gaia is instrumental in orchestrating the first succession of Gods, but a question is asked of whether Gaia’s actions throughout the poem are fundamentally weak or strong. This paper will argue that Gaia is a fundamentally strong character that is crucial to the creation and formation
Gaia, one of the first Greek beings, gave birth to Ouranos by herself to “cover her all over, and to be an always safe home for the blessed gods.” (Theog. 127-8). She later married her son, Ouranos, and gave birth to Kronos. Ouranos hated all of his children from birth and banished them inside of Gaia so that they would never see the light (Theog. 157-8). Gaia, not happy with the way she and her children were being treated, used
deceit, and forming mother-child bonds to preserve the female power of birth, the unique power to control what is created and influence the actions of that creation. In the Theogony, creation starts with two powerful initial goddesses: Chaos and Gaia. These goddesses give birth to a plethora of children, all of them born “without [the goddesses] mating in sweet love” (line 132). Because they give birth through self-procreation the goddesses have absolute control over their wombs. As other deities
Greek Mythology: Fact or Fiction “Most myths can be divided into two groups: explanatory myths and creation myths. Creation myths are those that try to explain the origin of the world, the creation of human beings and the birth of gods and goddesses. Explanatory myths are those that try to explain natural processes or events and also some deal with illness and death. Mythical beings fall into several groups. Many gods and goddesses resemble human beings even though they do have supernatural
men. Gaia and the Titan Rhea rise up against their husbands in order to protect their children. Pandora, another woman in the Greek myths, shows that all evil comes from woman. Aphrodite, Gaia, Rhea, and Pandora cause the ancient Greek men to be suspicious of women because of her mischievous and wild behavior. In Hesiod’s
The Destructive Power of Love in Hesiod's Theogony Love is one of the most fundamental forces at work in Hesiod's Theogony.Ê Personified as Eros, Love is one of the first gods to appear.Ê Although he is parentless and fathers no children of his own, he plays catalyst to the reproductive creation of the world.Ê Just as the world is not perfect, however, so Eros is not an entirely benevolent power.Ê He affects all beings indiscriminately, which results in the proliferation of monsters and dark
The Language Behind Dawkins’ Selfish Gene Theory According to Michael Polanyi, our understanding of a concept depends in part on the language we use to describe it. Connie Barlow's book, From Gaia to Selfish Genes, looks at metaphors in science as integral parts of some new biological theories. One example is Richard Dawkins' theory about the selfish gene, where he claims that the most basic unit of humanity, the gene, is a selfish entity unto itself that exists outside the realm of our individual
Gaia was a earth goddess and controlled the earth and had a son named Uranus , he controlled the sky , Gaia wanted children so bad that she had kids with her son Uranus. The first set of Gaia children were the Hekatonkheires , they were giants who had hundred hands and fifty heads , but Uranus was worried that 1 day her children would over power him , so he had to get rid of them he pushed them back into her whom , Gaia was hurt at the loss of her kids. Gaia then had a second set of children named
main Gods and Goddesses like Zeus, Hera, Athena, and so on, but there is so much more to the Greek Gods than just that. For instance, I vaguely remember learning about the Goddess Gaia. What I remember is that she was the Goddess was Mother Earth, but it turns out there is SO much more to her than meets the 5th grade eye. Gaia was one of the primordial deities and was the “great mother of all” and the primal Greek Mother Goddess. She is considered the creator and giver of birth to the Earth and all of
migrated and taken over this land around 1700 B.C. (Stone, 10). The people already living there did not put up much of a fight. These natives worshipped small clay and wooden figures which was there goddess, an earth mother whom they called Ge and later Gaia (Stone, 11). The Greeks could not believe that a god could be reduced to the form of a man. It was not long before they realized they used these figures to pray for rain (Stone, 12). The natives also told elaborate stories about their gods as well
of in these texts. The actions of Gaia, the earth, her daughter Rhea, and the goddess Demeter display some of the key characteristics that make up the role of a mother in these ancient texts. When reviewing examples of mothers in the text it is evident that part of the mother’s role is to have children to care for. “Gaia now first gave birth to starry Ouranos, her match in size to encompass all of her, and be the firm seat of all the blessed gods.” (126-128) Gaia is the first example of a mother
on earth, but it’s all out of a place of sorrow. She does it merely to look for her daughter in hopes of finding her. Throughout all of these examples, it’s obvious to see that women in Greek Mythology are portrayed as deceptive. Penelope, Demeter,Gaia, and Rhea are just a few of the women who were portrayed as misleading in the Greek society. As readers interpret the readings, such as The Odyssey, Theogony, and Homeric Hymm, they will see the numerous deceitful acts commented by the Greek women
families to act in forceful ways. Often times in Greek culture we forget about the wife, since she was often hidden the husband. In this situation many people don’t realize Gaia was the character that suffered because she was taken advantage of and forced to hide her children, without even having a say in the whole situation. Eventually Gaia realized this maltreatment needed to stop. She realized that she wasn’t strong enough on her own, so she asked her children for help. “Listen to me, children, and we
which had its own problems. The Greeks believed chaos was one god that came first because he was the primal existence, after that came Mother earth (Gaia) and she was the one that created mountains high and low, she created rivers, lakes and even seas. After mother nature was Tartarus and he built his home in the underworld way below the world of Gaia. Chaos also created Eros out of love and he became the most handsome gods of them all. The Greeks thought these first gods which kind of made sense
half snake.” (Siteseen Pg. 2-3) Tartarus had other children with other gods, one of these children would be Typhon. Tartarus had him with Gaea, the stories describe him as a sickening monster that had 100 dragon heads. Typhon was the last child of Gaia and Tartarus. It was said Typhon was a god more powerful than Zeus. Typhon was in the Battle for Olympus. Typhon was tired of being an outcast and decided to take over Mount Olympus, home of the gods. Zeus didn’t like this and battle Typhon. It