Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
took the form of two powerful intuitions that he immediately translated into a scientific
hypothesis. From then on, Lovelock's intuitive connection with Gaia was to grow gradu-
ally, like the slow growth of a copper sulphate crystal in super-saturated solution.
Excited by the astonishing idea of a living Earth, Lovelock tried to explain his idea to
his NASA colleagues, but none of them really understood what he meant. He searched
for a name for his insight, and whimsically played with the possibility of calling it the
BUST hypothesis—the 'Biocybernetic Universal System Tendency'. Had he used this
name, the idea of a self-regulating, living Earth might have easily caught hold in the sci-
entific mainstream, but he chose to invoke the name given by the Greeks to their divinity
of the Earth, which did not please the scientific establishment. There was, however, one
eminent scientist who did respond with great enthusiasm when she first heard of Love-
lock's idea—Lynn Margulis, the American evolutionist famous for providing conclusive
proof that bacterial mergers about 2,000 million years ago gave rise to the complex cells
we are familiar with today, such as those of mammals and plants. Margulis helped Love-
lock flesh out his theory with many details about how microbes affect the atmosphere
and other surface features of our planet, but the name 'Gaia' was given to Lovelock's
notion of a selfregulating Earth by William Golding, an extraordinarily able man who
was not only a Nobel laureate in literature, but also a physicist and a classical scholar.
One afternoon in the 1960s James Lovelock and William Golding walked together
towards the post office in the village of Bowerchalke in Wiltshire where they both lived.
As they walked, Lovelock explained his vision of a self-regulating Earth to Golding,
who was deeply impressed by the idea of our planet as a great living being. Feeling that
this extraordinary notion had a great deal to do with the ancient Greek divinity of the
Earth— with Gaia herself—Golding told Lovelock that this grand idea needed a suit-
ably evocative name. Cautiously, Golding breathed the word “Gaia” into the enfolding
air that swirled between the two friends like a secret listener at the doorways of con-
sciousness. The Earth held her breath as the neurons in Lovelock's brain began to fire,
for here at last was a possibility that her living presence could once again be recognised
by the very culture that was at that precise moment laying waste to her great wild body.
But Lovelock misunderstood Golding's suggestion, thinking that he must have been re-
ferring to the great 'gyres' that swirl over vast areas of the ocean and air. Prompted by a
strange sense of urgency, Golding tried once more, making it clear that he was speaking
of none other than the ancient and once revered Greek divinity of the Earth. Once more
the word “Gaia” resonated in the air between the two friends, but this time Lovelock
understood the name correctly, and a strange feeling came over him that he had at last
found the name he had been looking for. But perhaps it wasn't just Lovelock who ex-
perienced delight, for it may well have been that in that very moment the multitudinous
microbes, the great whales, the prolific rainforests, the wide blue oceans, the rocks and
