Humans now engage the Earth at Gaian scale. How did Earth and humans get to this state? Given how we got here, how should we proceed? Tim Flannery finds that the evolutionary perspective of Alfred Russell Wallace offers better guidance than the more familiar Darwinian version of evolution.
Australian biologist Tim Flannery is the renowned author of The Weather Makers, The Future Eaters, and a great ecological history of North America, The Eternal Frontier. His current book is Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet.
Bio
Stewart Brand
Stewart Brand is co-founder and president of The Long Now Foundation and co-founder of Global Business Network. He created and edited the Whole Earth Catalog (National Book Award), and co-founded the Hackers Conference and The WELL. His books include The Clock of the Long Now; How Buildings Learn; and The Media Lab. His most recent book, titled Whole Earth Discipline, is published by Viking in the US and Atlantic in the UK.
Tim Flannery
Tim Flannery has written such books as the definitive ecological histories of Australia (The Future Eaters) and North America (The Eternal Frontier). He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers.
As a field zoologist he has discovered and named more than thirty new species of mammals (including two tree-kangaroos) and at 34 he was awarded the Edgeworth David Medal for Outstanding Research.
He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement and has edited and introduced many historical works, including The Birth of Sydney, The Diaries of William Buckley and The Explorers. He received a Centenary of Federation Medal for his service to science and in 2002 he became the first environmentalist to deliver the Australia Day address to the nation.
Tim Flannery spent a year as professor of Australian studies at Harvard, where he taught in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. In Australia he is a leading member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, which reports independently to government on sustainability issues.
Tim Flannery was named Australian of the Year the day before Australia Day on 25th January 2007.
Theory of the evolutionary mechanism proposed by Charles Darwin as an explanation of organic change. It denotes Darwin's specific view of how evolution works. Darwin developed the concept that evolution is brought about by the interplay of three principles: variation (present in all forms of life), heredity (the force that transmits similar organic form from one generation to another), and the struggle for existence (which determines the variations that will be advantageous in a given environment, thus altering the species through selective reproduction). Present knowledge of the genetic basis of inheritance has contributed to scientists' understanding of the mechanisms behind Darwin's ideas, in a theory known as neo-Darwinism.
Model of the Earth in which its living and nonliving parts are viewed as a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. Developed c. 1972 largely by British chemist James E. Lovelock and U.S. biologist Lynn Margulis, the Gaia hypothesis is named for the Greek Earth goddess. It postulates that all living things have a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that promotes life overall; the Earth is homeostatic in support of life-sustaining conditions. The theory is highly controversial.
Yes, this is how it is done. Scientists look for chemical gradients as indicators of the presence of life in extra-terrestrial environments. Life inherently involves the use of chemical energy to isolate chemical reactions, thus improving the thermodynamic likelihood for a successful reaction. This involves spatial separation of compounds. Chemical equilibrium is not a sign of life as we understand it.
GREAT DISCUSSION DR:JAMES LOVELOCK DR.JAMES HANSON DR. BLAYLOCK ALL COULD HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THIS ALL IMPORTANT TOPIC OF GREAT URGENCY: THANKS FORA TV:
I WROTE A PAPER IN 2003 and another 2006 "donīt let the Sun catch You crying" and "Solar SACRIFICES OF THE HUMAN KIND" American Chronicle google Peter KNOPFLER thanks again!
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