Justin_final.html

"The earth I tread on is not a dead, inert mass; it is a body, has a spirit, is organic and fluid to the influence of its spirit."
~Henry David Thoreau^[1]

To claim that the earth is alive is to label oneself a mystic, a new-age spiritualist, or a poet. Certainly the metaphor is not a unique one--the idea of a living earth turns up everywhere from Thoreau to Chief Seattle, and back to the ancient Greeks. Yet, when such a statement falls from the tongue of a scientist, the idea is greeted with something more than skepticism, something more akin to distaste or moderate embarrassment. Such an idea cannot possibly be scientific; maybe a compelling analogy, but not science. This is precisely the reaction British scientist James Lovelock received when he suggested a model of a living earth in the 1960s as the Gaia hypothesis. After a long period of neglect, the scientific community turned to the Gaia hypothesis in the 1980s with a critical eye and, for the most part, objected not to the science behind it, but to the notion that it was science at all.
James Lovelock maintains a conception of science that is fundamentally different from what he views as the "mainstream" trends in modern science. It is this fundamentally different vision of what science is, how it should be done, and what it can accomplish that is evidenced in his Gaia hypothesis and reflected in the reaction from the mainstream scientific community to Lovelock's conjectures. Where the scientific practice is currently dominated by the reductionist style of scientific inquiry, Lovelock favors the holistic. Where scientists seek out theories that make applicable, falsifiable predictions, Lovelock seeks out metaphors that explain the world around him. Where biologists, physicists, geochemists, and theoretical ecologists assume a vague definition of life relevant to their own specialty, Lovelock asks what it means to be "alive". These differences--whether for the better or for the worse--are apparent in his most notable accomplishment, the Gaia hypothesis that first gained wide attention in 1979 with the publication of his book, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth in 1979.
The main focus of this paper will be an examination of how Lovelock's anti-mainstream vision of the scientific practice is articulated in his Gaia hypothesis and how this unconventional perspective affected the original hostility of the "scientific community" whose prior expectations and preconceived notions regarding the nature of science ran counter to the ideas expressed in Lovelock's hypothesis. The reaction of the scientific community focused on three issues raised by Lovelock's unconventional approach: (1) the conflict between reductionism and holism as a means of scientific inquiry; (2) the problematic definition of what it means to be alive; and (3) the question of what constitutes science. The serious critical response to the Gaia hypothesis largely consisted of objections to the answers Lovelock gives to these questions.

Foundations of Gaia
"I think of the Earth as a living organism. The rocks, the air, the oceans, and all life are an inseparable system that functions to keep the planet livable." ~James Lovelock^[2]

To begin, an explanation of the main scientific implications of the Gaia hypothesis may be warranted. Gaia, first presented by Lovelock in 1979 as a completed theory, sought to explain the amazing improbability of the equilibrium of the earth's atmosphere in a state conducive to life. In his theory, Lovelock supposes that the whole earth is a self-regulating system that will preserve an environment suitable for life against all threats. The Gaia hypothesis proposes, then, that the whole biosphere participates in a complex network of interactions that has resisted physical changes, of which the most often referred to is the thirty per cent increase in the sun's radiation since life first appeared three and a half billion years ago.^[3] Scientifically, the hypothesis is concerned primarily with the chemical composition of the troposphere, the lower atmosphere of the earth. In Lovelock's theory, the chemical composition of the reactive gases in the troposphere, the oxidation/reduction state and the pH in the atmosphere, are actively maintained by the activities of the biota. Biota, in this sense, refers to the sum of all living organisms on the planet: flora, fauna, and most importantly, microbiota.^[4] Essentially, then, the Gaia hypothesis as Lovelock introduced it asserts that the biota and its environment constitute a single homeostatic system that opposes changes unfavorable for life, through the use of negative feedback mechanisms. In this way, as Lovelock states, '"Life, or the biosphere, regulates or maintains the climate and the atmospheric composition at an optimum for itself."^[5]
From the position of conventional science, an ecosystem is thought of as a stable, self-perpetuating system, composed of a community of living organisms and their non-living environment.^[6] According to this perspective, organisms do not alter their environment, they merely adapt to it. In contrast to this, the Gaian view of an ecosystem, sees the two components of the system, the living and the non-living, as two tightly coupled interactive forces, each one shaping and affecting the other. The end result of this intertwining is a sort of biological relativism where the line between life and the inanimate environment cannot clearly by demarcated, where life and death cannot be seen as absolute, just as Einstein blurred the line between the radically different phenomena of matter and energy, demonstrating that they are, in fact, functions of one another.^[7] It is for this reason that Lovelock believes he can refer to the earth as a "living planet" or as his superorganism, even though most of the planet is "un-living" by any conventional definition.
As a conception of the earth as a self-regulating superorganism, Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis is not without antecedents. In citing the foundations upon which the Gaia hypothesis was constructed, it becomes apparent that the theory was, in fact, echoing back to a tradition dating from the eighteenth century--not just a tradition in chemistry or earth science, but in the very manner in which science was practiced in contrast to that of the modern scientific profession.
In a 1789 Edinburgh lecture, James Hutton stated, "I consider the Earth to be a super-organism and that its proper study should be by physiology."^[8] Lovelock cites the eminent eighteenth-century British scientist James Hutton, regarded as the father of geology, to be his most direct forerunner, not only in terms of Hutton's similar conception of the earth as a "living being", but also as a multi-disciplinary scientist of broad interests who was equal part farmer, physician, and natural philosopher. It is from Hutton, in fact, that Lovelock borrows the concept of "geophysiology"--a term Lovelock has adopted as the title for the new discipline of planetary systems that he envisions as the practical outcome of his Gaia hypothesis.^[9] Hutton, then, serves as an antecedent of the Gaia hypothesis' implications regarding the living earth, but also as a model for the way in which Lovelock views the scientific inquiry, a view that de-emphasizes the specialization of science and the dominance of the reductionist mentality. Lovelock asserts that geophysiology is a legitimate discipline whose study is the properties of large systems on the global scale: the most basic example being the regulation of climate and temperature by the biota. It is also the basis of an empirical practice, planetary medicine. While still far from acceptance as a discipline, geophysiology maintains, in Lovelock's opinion, the honorable traditions of scientific thought and experiment of the natural philosophers.^[10]
The most "illustrious predecessor" in Lovelock's opinion is the soviet biochemist V.I. Vernadsky, considered the founder of both biogeochemistry and of our contemporary conception of the biosphere.^[11] In his work, Vernadsky built upon the works of organic chemistry pioneers like Liebig, Boussingault, and Dumas in exploring how chemical cycles interacted with the mechanisms of biological populations, connecting all organisms, including microorganisms, soils, and the atmosphere. In blending these areas of scientific specialization, Vernadsky practiced a holism that helped produce our modern global ecological world-view. In this way, Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis can trace back its lineage after Hutton, through the more recent work of distinguished scientists such as Vernadsky, G. E. Hutchinson, and Alfred Lotka.^[12] Lovelock believes that these men were closer to an era before the fragmentation of science, a time when science was whole, and served as the vocation of wise and broad-minded natural philosophers.^[13] In a way, it is this sort of atmosphere of scientific endeavor that Lovelock seeks to attain with his holistic, multi-disciplinary conception of science--a conception of science whose influence is made evident by his Gaia hypothesis.

Lovelock's Holistic Science
"Real science, the wondering about how the world works and the design of simple experiments to test the theories that thus come to mind, is like its companion creative activity, art, and best done quietly and inexpensively." ~James Lovelock^[14]

Lovelock portrays himself as an amateur scientist, a British eccentric living the life of a recluse in the Devonshire countryside, harking back to the style of scientific inquiry applied by those broadly curious natural philosophers such as Hutton. Generally regarded by others as a biologist or atmospheric scientist, Lovelock considers himself an inventor.^[15] Though he paints himself with the brush of an eccentric hobbyist, Lovelock's scientific credentials are not unsubstantial. As an interdisciplinary tinkerer, Lovelock holds degrees in both chemistry and medicine, taught engineering, physiology, and cybernetics at a number of universities on both sides of the Atlantic, including the medical schools at Harvard and Yale. In addition, Lovelock has consulted with NASA, working on the Viking program's satellites intended for Mars in the 1960s.^[16] With no formal academic affiliation, Lovelock holds the rare honor of being a self-employed researcher admitted to Britain's prestigious Royal Society.^[17]
For Lovelock, science is less useful in sanctifying an hypothesis than it is as a sort of looking glass through which to see the world differently.^[18] In this vision of the scientific endeavor, the merit of a theory is more accurately measured in whether or not it causes one to ask valuable questions that may inspire these new ways of seeing nature, rather than if it is technically "right" or "wrong".^[19] It is here where Lovelock believes modern science has faltered--by accepting the misconceived idea that science may be right or wrong absolutely.^[20] Instead of this, Lovelock asserts that science consists of making guesses and then trying to refine them. "Look at Newton," Lovelock writes, "He made a damn good guess. You can still navigate all the way around the solar system using Newtonian mechanics, except possibly between Mercury and the sun. You hardly need Einstein at all. A bloody good guess."^[21]
Lovelock establishes his vision of science as contrary to what he sees as the major failings of the modern scientific profession already touched upon above: the fragmentation and specialization of scientific disciplines, and the position of reductionism as the prevalent mode of scientific inquiry. Lovelock clearly expresses frustration at the specialization of modern science that he views as a distancing from the more noble work of earlier natural philosophers who worked as polymaths, dabbling in many disciplines while looking for interconnections and broad themes that explained the workings of the world. In his 1988 book The Ages of Gaia, Lovelock highlights this as one of the major trends in the modern scientific profession that prevented scientists, specifically biologists, from accepting the Gaia theory.^[22]
In Lovelock's opinion, this fragmentation that has accompanied the increasing specialization of the scientific profession makes it difficult for biologists and environmental scientists to properly understand the implications of the Gaia hypothesis as a scientific model of the biosphere.^[23] Lovelock laments this trend in science, wherein "the boundaries between the sciences are jealously guarded by their Professors and within each territory there is a different arcane language to be learnt."^[24] In Lovelock's vision, the Gaia hypothesis blends these fragmented fields, applying equally to the work of biologists, geochemists and atmospheric physicists--yet, this multi-disciplinary nature made the theory unlikely to be fully appreciated by scientists who toil in "narrow specialties proud in their ignorance of other sciences."^[25] As collaborator Stephen Schneider recalls,

Lovelock once observed that there are biologists studying bugs on the ground who have noticed that methane was being released, but it didn't mean much to them. And that there are aeronomists studying the upper atmosphere who have noticed the methane but knew nothing about the bugs.^[26]

In this way, a theory that links the behavior of all organisms to the functioning of the earth's processes would appear counter-intuitive to a scientific community accustomed to increasing specialization. Such a holistic, "big-picture" theory runs in opposition to the dominant trend of narrow specialization of modern science, and as a result, in the opinion of Lovelock, the scientific community was not prepared to see the significance of the Gaia theory or the science behind it.^[27] In response to the question of why scientists should join earth and life sciences together, Lovelock writes, "I would ask, why have they been torn apart by the ruthless dissection of science into separate and blinkered disciplines?"^[28]
Continuing in this vein, it is no surprise, then, to find that Lovelock favors a holistic view of science over the reductionist method that has dominated modern science. Reductionism is the method of inquiry that seeks to explain the properties of complex wholes--molecules, for example, or societies--in terms of the units of which those molecules or societies are composed. According to the reductionist line of thinking, the compositional units of a whole, as well as the properties of those units, exist before the whole, and there is a chain of causation that runs from the units to the whole.^[29] Although the development of systems theory and numerous ‘bottom-up' methods of viewing ecology have emerged in the last twenty years, since the 1950's reductionism has pervaded as the dominant paradigm in the sciences of ecology and biology.^[30] For Lovelock, the problem with reductionism lies with its belief that the method of examining systems by dissection is all that is needed--reductionists maintain that there is nothing in the whole system that cannot be predicted from a knowledge of its divided parts.^[31] Lovelock writes,

as understanding grows, we are more and more aware that the universe we inhabit is both self-organizing and in many ways unpredictable. To understand it and its most complex entities--living systems--reduction alone is not enough.^[32]

Such broad concepts as life, intelligence, or Gaia, are comprehensible in a general way to the public yet bewilder scientists who remain fixed in their reductionist mentality. From the perspective of Lovelock's conception of science, the puzzling constancy of the climate and other problems that seem obscure within the rigidly divided fields of science become clear when viewed holistically, as phenomena of a living planet.^[33]
In contrast to Lovelock's mode of scientific endeavor, the model of scientific advance that dominates the manner in which most scientists are educated, and which is largely grounded in the work of Karl Popper and like-minded philosophers of science, sees science as progressing in a somewhat abstract way, through a continuous procession of theory-devising and testing, conjectures and refutations.^[34] While the updated Kuhnian model of scientific inquiry asserts that this sequence of theorizing and refutations in "accepted" science is occasionally disturbed by periods of "revolutionary" science in which the entire framework (the paradigm) within which the conjectures and refutations are framed is shifted, Popper's conception of science seems more welcome by the scientific community as it upholds science as distinguished from other forms of knowledge. In any event, the manner in which hypotheses are defined as legitimate in modern science is still heavily influenced by Popper's model of what constitutes "real" science.
Popper's "falsificationist" method of scientific inquiry considers a theory to be "scientific" according to the following criteria: (1) the theory is liable to be falsified by data (2) the theory is testable by observation and experiment, and (3) it makes valid predictions.^[35] While Popper's philosophy of science can certainly be debated, the application of this style of inquiry by scientists objecting to the Gaia hypothesis served as a most pointed critique of Lovelock's work and method. From the perspective of a scientific community that bases its vision of science in the Popperian model, Lovelock's method of inquiry is likely to be at best neglected, and at worst rejected, as pseudo-science. This is not to say that the reaction was unwarranted or inappropriate--as Lovelock himself states, "the scientific community is reluctant to accept new theories as fact, and rightly so."^[36] It is certainly not surprising, then, to find that the majority of criticisms to the Gaia hypothesis were less concerned with the hard scientific data than with the multi-disciplinary, holistic philosophy of science behind Lovelock's theory.

The Metaphor of "Life"
"Why do scientists dislike the word Gaia? I think it is because they instinctively rejected the theory when it was first proposed - we all do this with new theories; it is a necessary part of their natural selection. Because I expressed the theory in metaphor, not the jargon of science-speak, they overreacted and attacked the metaphor instead of the science."
~James Lovelock
speech at the launch of the Gaia Society on 9th Feb., 1998

Lovelock's conception of science as a "looking glass", a tool to explore the workings of nature in a new way, is articulated in his work, as he weaves together his theory using analogy and metaphor. This practice of science through analogy has lead to dismissive criticism from more traditional scientists, such as eminent biochemist and current director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research in Evolutionary Biology, W. Ford Doolittle, who claims that the Gaia hypothesis is more metaphor than theory, more poetry than science.^[37] This objected to use of metaphor, and the association with pseudo-science that accompanies it, is clearly observed in the often confusing analogy at the center of the Gaia hypothesis--the claim that the earth is alive.
The biology textbooks we remember from introductory college courses discuss what it means to be alive: response to stimuli, reproduction, energy transformation, and the like. From such textbooks one receives the conception of the biotic community as a generally static environment that serves as an "un-living backdrop" for the activities of organisms. Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis rejects this idea that the environment is an "un-living backdrop", a dead stage on which living organisms act out their complex lives. In contrast, the Gaia hypothesis asserts that organisms and their environment are intertwined, and in doing so, forces a rethinking of what is "living" and what is "un-living".
The question of what it means to be alive has long been a problematic one to accurately answer--in the scholarly Dictionary of Biology, one finds entries on "leptotene" and "limnology", but not one on "life", and each scientific discipline has its own interpretation to which it adamantly holds.^[38] Indeed, the specialization of the scientific disciplines in modern practice that Lovelock emphasizes as one of the dominant trends in science contrary to which his theory runs, further complicates the question of what is life. In reference to the problems of defining life, Lovelock again mentions his frustration with this compartmentalization of disciplines as he writes,

If we ask a group of scientists 'What is life?' they will answer from the restricted viewpoint of their own particular disciplines. A physicist will say that life is a peculiar state of matter that reduces its internal entropy in a flux of free energy, and is characterized by an intricate capacity for self-organization.... A neo-Darwinist biologist will define a living organism as one able to reproduce and to correct the errors of reproduction through natural selection among its progeny. To a biochemist, a living organism is one that takes in free energy as sun light, or chemical potential energy, such as food and oxygen, and uses the energy to grow according to the instructions coded in its genes. To a geophysiologist, a living organism is a bounded system open to a flux of matter and energy, which is able to keep its internal medium constant in composition and its physical state intact in a changing environment; it is able to keep in homeostasis. . . Gaia would be a living organism under the physicist's or the biochemist’s definitions.^[39]

In this way, the initial reaction of skepticism to a theory that purports that the earth is alive is understandable and, as James Lovelock himself points out, appropriate. In response to this unwillingness to consider a hypothesis that implies such an analogy, Lovelock calls upon an additional comparison, liking the earth to a giant Redwood tree that is alive and majestic, yet is composed of 97% dead material.^[40] The very name Lovelock adopted for his hypothesis at the suggestion of novelist William Golding--"Gaia"--is, itself, an analogy that draws connections back to the earth goddess in Greek mythology. Concerning this metaphorical nature of the Gaia hypotheses, Doolittle, who taught at both Harvard and Stanford, states that Lovelock's theory suffers from flawed terminology, in that the use of Gaia as an "Earth-as-organism" metaphor applies the same terminology to both Gaia and recognized biological organisms--a decision both unwise and misleading.^[41] Though some may find it useful to view the Earth as if it were an organism, Doolittle maintains that viewing the Earth as an organism itself is neither scientifically meaningful nor scientifically answerable, insisting that, with Gaia, Lovelock offers only "a myth to express our wonder and gratitude, . . . Gaia is the muse of many who care deeply about this planet."^[42]
While these criticisms of Lovelock's use of analogy are valid, it is important to highlight that, in speaking of a "living planet" Lovelock is not suggesting that the earth is alive in an animistic way of a planet with sentience. Instead, Lovelock insists that he refers only to the activities of the earth, such as regulating the climate through the mechanisms of the biota, which function automatically, "not through an act of will, and all of it within the strict bounds of science."^[43] Lovelock describes the planetary ecosystem as alive because it behaves like a living organism to the extent that, like other organisms, its temperature and chemistry are self-regulated at a constant state favorable to life in the face of perturbations. Gaia, in this way, is the Earth seen as a single physiological system. At the same time, Lovelock admits the problematic use of his "living planet" idea, writing that he is

well aware that the term itself is metaphorical and that the earth is not alive in the same way as you or me, or even a bacterium . . . Real science is riddled with metaphor. Science grows from imaginary models in the mind and is sharpened by measurements that check the fit of the models with reality.^[44]

Here, again, is an expression of Lovelock's anti-mainstream conception of science, with its holistic view that is best articulated through analogy that inspires new ways of looking at nature and deeper questioning. While maintaining this principle, Lovelock does insist that Gaia theory is proper science and is not limited to mere metaphor.
Clearly then, this metaphorical nature of Lovelock's philosophy of science, specifically as evidenced in the Gaia hypothesis as it was first presented, served as an obvious stumbling block for scientists assessing the merit of the new theory. To some in the scientific community--if we may take the reaction of men like Doolittle to represent a sample of the larger community--the Gaia hypothesis, with its heavy use of analogy and its questioning of the very definition of life, was more metaphorical than scientific, more of a worldview than a theory in terms of the reigning conception of science. Certainly, these objections to the "living earth" metaphor were not alone in their criticism of Gaia as unscientific, as we shall see in the next section.

Is the Gaia Hypothesis Science?
"[Darwinian processes] probably explain all that the more extreme Gaia hypotheses do, without invoking global entities, imputing teleological intentionality, or assuming optimal control. It is testable at many scales, from the laboratory to the globe."
~James Kirchner^[45]

Just as the definition of life is so difficult to discern, perhaps no one can absolutely answer the question of what is science. For this reason, the struggle over this issue has been a consistent thread woven through the history of science and, unsurprisingly, reappears in the criticism of the Gaia hypothesis. The unorthodox vision of science that Lovelock presents, beyond his broad application of metaphor, certainly made his Gaia hypothesis more difficult for the scientific community to swallow. The two dominant objections to Lovelock's theory as unscientific focused on two main issues: (1) the possible teleologic implications of the Gaian conception of the interactions between the biota, the solid earth, and the atmosphere; and (2) its apparent untestability which, referring to the Popperian criteria for an acceptable scientific hypothesis, makes Gaia unfalsifiable and, thus, devoid of meaning as science.
In the wake of attention given to the Gaia hypothesis following the 1988 AGU conference, a new wave of more scientifically-bound criticisms emerged--criticisms that no longer stalled simply at the issue of the living earth as a metaphor. Among the most commonly argued of such objections brought against the Gaia hypothesis from the scientific community was that it was distressingly teleological. Teleology asserts that there is an element of purpose or design behind the workings of nature, and, like the definitions of "life" and legitimate science, is part of a very old debate in the history of science: this time between the mechanistic vision of nature as essentially behaving like a machine, and vitalists who maintain that there is a non-causal life force.^[46]
This dissension to the Gaia hypothesis on grounds that it was teleological, again using the biochemist Doolittle as a figurehead for this group of critics that includes Richard Dawkins, insists that the theory suggested the presence of some design or purpose behind the nature and administration of the biosphere, an idea that runs in opposition to the accepted position of Darwinian evolutionary doctrine of natural selection--a mechanism without a mind.^[47] Lovelock's collaborator, the brilliant microbiologist Lynn Margulis, had much to reply in this area regarding the systematics of Darwinian evolution in regard to the smallest and earliest of living things upon the earth.^[48] In his own right, Lovelock sought to counter this criticism in his further research and writings by way of theoretical ecology, clarifying the role of Darwinian evolution in linking organism natural selection to the optimization of the environment:

When the activity of an organism favors the environment as well as the organism itself, then its spread will be assisted; eventually the organism and the environmental change associated with it will become global in extent. The reverse is also true, and any species that adversely affects the environment is doomed; but life goes on.^[49]

Expanding on his defense of the Gaia hypothesis against these accusations of teleology, Lovelock proposed the thought problem that became perhaps the most effective counter-argument to criticisms of his theory as teleological and unscientific: Daisyworld. This simple computerized metaphor has since become an integral part of the debate about the Gaia Hypothesis.^[50]
In this model, Lovelock presents the systematic behavior of the theoretical planet Daisyworld within which, the environment has been simplified to a single variable (planetary temperature), and the biota consists of only several species of daisies. Like the earth, Daisyworld maintains its global temperature reasonably constant in the face of time and the problematic increasing energy output of its sun. Gaia theory sees the evolution of organisms as so closely coupled with the evolution of their physical and chemical environment that together they constitute a single evolutionary process, which is self-regulating. Any species that adversely affects the environment, making it less favorable for life’s progeny will ultimately be selected against, just as surely as will those weaker members of a species who fail to pass the evolutionary fitness test. It is this model for the automatic, unteleological functioning of the Gaia hypothesis that is articulated in Daisyworld.^[51]
In the Daisyworld parable, then, this imaginary planet maintains conditions for its survival simply by following its own natural processes. The Daisyworld planet contains two species of daisies: light daisies and dark daisies. Light daisies tend to reflect light, which has a cooling effect, while dark ones absorb radiation, and therefore warm the planet. In the distant past, when the star was less luminous, only the equatorial region will have been warm enough to permit the growth of daisies, and the dark daisies flourish due to their ability to absorb more warmth from sunlight. In this manner, the dark daisies gradually colonize most of the planet, and by absorbing heat, begin to warm the surface environment. At this point, as the star's luminosity increased, the lighter daisies become the species favored by Gaia due to their ability to keep both themselves and the planet cool by reflecting more light. In the model's conclusion, the star becomes so luminous that the ability of the white daisies to keep themselves and the planet cool fails and life is extinguished.^[52]
Growth of the daisies thus depends on the present population, the natural death rate, the available space and the temperature (the equations that Lovelock used to model them were based on the dynamics of real daisy growth).^[53] Lovelock asserts that when the model is run with the sun's luminosity gradually increasing, the population of the light and dark daisies adjust themselves naturally so as to keep the temperature constant at the optimal level for daisy growth up to the point where the sun's luminosity overpowers the daisies. In this way, Daisyworld is an example of a self-regulating system. Feedback loops between the daisies and the planet temperature, contained in the equations relating growth rate to the proportion of light reflected from the planet, somehow conspire to maintain the conditions suitable for life.^[54] The Daisyworld model as presented by Lovelock is only a kind of thought experiment, but serves as an effective demonstration of the principle of self-regulation--it is a viable ecosystem which regulates its temperature, without any recourse to selection or, most importantly, teleology.
The Daisyworld model also served as a counter-argument to an additional criticism of Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, answering the critics claim that Lovelock's "living earth" had evolved without any recourse to natural selection--contradictory to traditional Darwinian evolution.^[55] These critics, the eminent biologist Dawkins among them, asked if the Earth is alive, where is its "selfish gene", and who will it pass it onto?^[56] How can a superorganism with a population of one evolve with no competition to enable natural selection? In Lovelock's Daisyworld model, the planet evolves through its own mechanisms towards the optimization of conditions for life, making use of natural selection in the microcosm to regulate the system in the macrocosm. In this way, the Daisyworld model served as Lovelock's reaction to the objections raised against his theory as unscientific both on the grounds that it is teleological and also contradicts the tenets of modern Darwinian theory.^[57]
Perhaps the most well executed anti-science criticism of Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis came from UC Berkeley professor of theoretical ecology James Kirchner partly as a response to the Daisyworld model. With impeccable credentials, including a masters degree in systems analysis from Dartmouth College and a Ph.d. in energy and resources from Berkeley, Kirchner's criticisms challenged the validity of Gaia as a hypothesis by directly questioning Lovelock's application of his against-the-mainstream mode of scientific inquiry. In his arguments, presented at the landmark 1988 AGU conference that placed the Gaia hypothesis firmly on the scientific radar, Kirchner dissected the clutter that he saw obscuring the Gaia hypothesis, dividing Gaia into a number of coherent, specific hypotheses that were held by various groups of Gaia supporters. Kirchner then analyzed each of the divided hypotheses for validity and scientific testability, and in doing so, illustrated the vast ambiguities of Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis that seemed to allow any two supporters to maintain two fundamentally different interpretations of the theory.^[58]
In his 1989 paper, The Gaia Hypotheses: Are They Testable? Are They Useful?, Kirchner fleshes out his argument, asserting that the Gaia hypotheses (recalling that Kirchner actually divided the Gaia hypothesis into five separate, somewhat conflicting hypotheses, ranging from "weak Gaia" to "strong Gaia") are unscientific in that they are untestable and fail to make any applicable predictions.^[59] The subdivided Gaia hypotheses presented by Kirchner were clarified as follows:

(1) Influential Gaia: "weak Gaia"--the concept that life is but one participant in the global system (Kirchner dismisses this as a restatement of accepted theory).

(2) Coevolutionary Gaia: life and the environment have evolved as an intertwined system (similarly dismissed as unoriginal by Kirchner).

(3) Homeostatic Gaia: the assertion that the biota maintains control of the global environment (this more traditional Gaian notion was set aside as poorly defined and circular).

(4) Teleological Gaia: the notion that the biota asserts its control with intent and purpose (rejected by Kirchner as a transparent tautology).

(5) Optimizing Gaia: "strong Gaia"--life's collective purpose is specified as the perfection of the planet (according to Kirchner, this belief is internally contradictory and also tautological).^[60]
In dissenting to the various forms of Gaia, Kirchner reiterates that in order to be testable, and therefore, scientific, a hypothesis must be made in terms that are both clear and unambiguous in their relationship to observable phenomena. Beyond this, any hypothesis must generate predictions of two kinds: confirmatory predictions (phenomena that should be observed if the hypothesis is true and that would not be predicted by the existing body of accepted theory) and falsifying predictions (phenomena that should be observed if the hypothesis is false).^[61]
As is made clear in these arguments, Kirchner's ideas regarding testability and the constitution of the scientific process rely mainly on the work of Karl Popper. In criticism of the Gaia hypotheses, Kirchner makes use of Popper's definition of science as opposed to pseudo-science in judging the scientific validity of the Gaia hypotheses. Popper's "falsificationist" method of scientific inquiry considered a theory scientific if it meets the following criteria: (1) was liable to be falsified by data (2) was testable by observation and experiment and (3) made valid predictions.^[62] Kirchner's employment of this definition of science reveals a pointed critique of Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis.
Applying Popper's conception of science, Kirchner dismisses each of the subdivided Gaia hypotheses as untestable and scientifically invaluable. In formulating his arguments, Kirchner asserts that Gaia is untestable because it can be endlessly re-interpreted to fit almost any data, is tautological in that it is true by definition, and is unfalsifiable due to its failure to make any predictions that might be falsified.^[63] To support this claim of unscientific tautology, he points to Lovelock's explanation of the oxygen crisis--the switch from oxidizing to reducing conditions in the Precambrian atmosphere. Lovelock cites the fact that terrestrial life survived the oxygen crises as evidence for Gaia's ability to adapt to changing conditions, which Kirchner responds to in stating,
If the most destabilizing biotic event in Earth's history can be construed as evidence for Gaia, and the relative stability since then can also be cited as evidence for Gaia, one wonders what conceivable events could not be interpreted as supporting the Gaia hypothesis. If there are none, Gaia cannot be tested against the geologic record . . . If Gaia stabilizes and Gaia destabilizes . . . is there any possible behavior which is not Gaian?^[64]

With these criticisms, Kirchner dismisses the Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis as unscientific, untestable, and excessively ambiguous in that they fail to conform to his model of scientific inquiry. In concluding, Kirchner offers the damning prediction that attempts to test this metaphor (Gaia) as a scientific proposition will be, in my opinion, ultimately futile.^[65] To be fair, Lovelock himself recognized this potential failure of his hypothesis, explaining in his 1979 book Gaia: A New Theory of Life on Earth, that "like a religious belief, it [the Gaia hypothesis] is scientifically untestable and therefore incapable in its own context of further rationalization."^[66]
In his final evaluation, Kirchner concludes that the Gaia hypothesis is crippled by its great generality, and insists that, while it may be a compelling worldview, it is not the kind of vision that can be scientifically validated, and thus, is unscientific.^[67] Clearly, then, Kirchner's criticism was grounded in a fundamental difference between his view of the mode of scientific inquiry and that which Lovelock was attempting to assert. The objection was not so much to the hard science, the data or mechanisms, but to the anti-mainstream conception of science that was behind Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis. In this way, Kirchner takes his place among that group of critics that include Doolittle and Dawkins, critics that see Gaia as a metaphor and as teleology--in responding to the question of whether Gaia is science with a resounding no.

Conclusion
"A day like today I realize what I've told you a hundred different times--that there is nothing wrong with the world. What's wrong is our way of looking at it."
~Henry Miller, from A Devil in Paradise^[68]

It is clear then, that the scientific community was unprepared to accept the Gaia hypothesis as presented by Lovelock in 1979 due to a fundamental difference in the way Lovelock viewed science. Lovelock's work was closely tied to the conflict between the characteristics of modern science as opposed to pre-revolutionary natural philosophy, leading Lovelock to reject the practice of science as an activity of a special group of self-validating experts, objecting to the appeal to the "scientific" for legitimacy and to scientists as the ultimate authorities as a quintessentially modern idea.^[69] Appropriately, the self-supported researcher breaks with the mainstream of modern science: praising multi-disciplinary work in the face of increasing specialization; a broad, holistic perspective in place of reductionism; and metaphorical theories meant to spark a re-looking at nature rather than rejecting theories that fail to pass the falsification criteria. These nonconformist tendencies found a compelling expression in his Gaia hypothesis, and as a result, served to undermine its legitimacy as a scientific theory. In looking back to the method of the natural philosophers, Lovelock maintains an unorthodox view of science which damns his theory to a position on the fringes of science. In that realm, on the fringes of "accepted" science, Gaia will share the company of homeopathic medicine and psychiatry, crystal-wearing New-Age spirituality and extra-sensory perception. But also there, on the edge of science, Lovelock will join the poets and the dreamers. And among them, I suspect he will feel quite at home.