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While there were a number of precursors to Gaia theory, the first scientific form of this idea was proposed as the Gaia Hypothesis by James Lovelock, a UK chemist, in 1970. The Gaia hypothesis deals with the concept of homeostasis, and claim the resident life forms of a host planet coupled with their environment have acted and act as a single, self-regulating system. The system includes the near-surface rocks, the soil, and the atmosphere. While controversial at first, various forms of this idea became accepted to some degree by many within the scientific community.
These theories are also very significant in green politics.
There are some mystical, scientific and religious predecessors to the theory, which had a Gaia-like conceptual basis. Many religious mythologies had a view of Earth as being a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts (e.g. some Native American religions).
Lewis Thomas held that Earth should be viewed as a single cell; he derived this view from Johannes Kepler's view of Earth as a single round organism. Teilhard de Chardin, a paleontologist and geologist, believes that evolution unfolded from cell to organism to planet to solar system and ultimately the whole universe, as we humans see it from our limited perspective. De Chardin later influenced Thomas Berry and many Catholic humanist thinkers of the 20th century. Buckminster FullerRichard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller ( July 12, 1895 July 1, 1983) was an American visionary, designer, architect, inventor, and writer. Achievements Fuller became famous for his huge geodesic domes, which can be seen as part of military radar stations, cit is generally credited with making the idea respectable in Western scientific circles in the 20th century. Building to some degree on his observations and artifacts, e.g. the Dymaxion mapThe Dymaxion Map of the Earth is a projection of a global map onto the surface of a three-dimensional regular solid, which can then be unfolded in many different ways and flattened to form a two-dimensional map which retains most of the relative proportio of the Earth he created, others began to ask if there was a way to make Gaia theory scientifically sound.None of these ideas are considered scientific hypotheses; by definition a scientific hypothesis must make testable predictions. As the above claims are not testable, they are outsides the bounds of science.
These are conjectures and perhaps can only be considered as social and maybe political philosophy; they may have implications for theology.
Gaia theory is a spectrum of hypotheses, ranging from the undeniable to radical. At one end is the undeniable statement that the organisms on the Earth have radically altered its composition. A stronger position is that the Earth's biosphere effectively acts as if it is a self-organizing system which works in such a way as to keep its systems in some kind of equilibrium that is conducive to life. Biologists usually view this activity as an undirected emergent property of the ecosystem; as each individual species pursues its own self-interest, their combined actions tend to have counterbalancing effects on environmental change. Proponents of this view sometimes point to examples of life's actions in the past that have resulted in dramatic change rather than stable equilibrium, such as the conversion of the Earth's atmosphere from a reducing environment to an oxygen-rich one.
An even stronger claim is that all lifeforms are part of a single planetary being, called Gaia. In this view, the atmosphere, the seas, the terrestrial crust would be the result of interventions carried out by Gaia, through the coevolving diversity of living organisms. Most scientists do not hold this view; however, such a view is considered within scientific possibility.
The most extreme form of Gaia theory is that the entire Earth is a single unified organism; in this view the Earth's biosphere is consciously manipulating the climate in order to make conditions more conducive to life. Scientists contend that there is no evidence at all to support this last point of view, and it has come about because many people do not understand the concept of homeostasis. Many non-scientists instinctively see homeostatis as an activity that requires conscious control, although this is not so.
Much more speculative versions of Gaia, including all versions in which it is held that the Earth is actually conscious or part of some universe-wide evolution, are currently held to be outside the bounds of science.