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The First Leslie Cooper Memorial Lecture Given at Plymouth on 10 April 1989 Gaia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

J.E. Lovelock
J.E. Lovelock
Affiliation:
Coombe Mill Experimental Station, St Giles on the Heath, Launceston, Cornwall, PL15 9RY
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Extract

I am pleased and honoured to have been asked to give the first of the lectures in memory of Dr Leslie Cooper. I was especially moved by the thought that the invitation was made knowing that I should almost certainly choose Gaia as the topic of my lecture. I know that many of you, especially biologists, think that the Gaia hypothesis is either trivial and untestable or else a mere reiteration of conventional wisdom in poetic terms. Hardly a topic with which to commemorate Leslie Cooper's memory.

You will be relieved to know that although Gaia is the theme of my talk, I shall try not to be overly partisan or dogmatic. My objective is to use Gaia theory to illustrate a top-down approach to earth and life science and try to contrast it with the bottom-up approach which is conventional in the earth and life sciences.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 69 , Issue 4 , November 1989 , pp. 746 - 758
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1989

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