James Lovelock was 100 last month:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2209648-james-lovelock-says-artificial-intelligence-is-the-start-of-new-life/

The article is an interesting read (need to subscribe for the whole thing though), and Lovelock got up to a whole load more in his pre-Gaia days than I realised.

His ideas seem to be about a 50/50 mix of pure genius and wackily stupid (not unlike someone here).

Reading TATE
it seems that the Gaia hypothesis is still seen as inconsistent with accepted theories of evolution, which strikes me as odd, since there is an obvious mechanism by which it can work, evolution by mass extinction event, which works at two levels:

At the planetary level, if a species (or group of species) becomes so dominant that it disrupts the environment, then species become extinct until the species doing the disrupting becomes extinct, and evolution recommences with a changed environmental balance.

For any extinction event there is a non-zero probability that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop, but at the universal level evolution will continue on those planets where all the extinction events have not been total. The anthropic principle guarantees that on any planet where life has developed to a stage where at least one species can wonder where it came from, none of the extinction events to that date will have been final.

Makes sense to me.

Am I missing something?

The Rev Dodgson said:

James Lovelock was 100 last month:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2209648-james-lovelock-says-artificial-intelligence-is-the-start-of-new-life/

The article is an interesting read (need to subscribe for the whole thing though), and Lovelock got up to a whole load more in his pre-Gaia days than I realised.

His ideas seem to be about a 50/50 mix of pure genius and wackily stupid (not unlike someone here).

Reading TATE
it seems that the Gaia hypothesis is still seen as inconsistent with accepted theories of evolution, which strikes me as odd, since there is an obvious mechanism by which it can work, evolution by mass extinction event, which works at two levels:

At the planetary level, if a species (or group of species) becomes so dominant that it disrupts the environment, then species become extinct until the species doing the disrupting becomes extinct, and evolution recommences with a changed environmental balance.

For any extinction event there is a non-zero probability that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop, but at the universal level evolution will continue on those planets where all the extinction events have not been total. The anthropic principle guarantees that on any planet where life has developed to a stage where at least one species can wonder where it came from, none of the extinction events to that date will have been final.

Makes sense to me.

Am I missing something?

(not unlike someone here)

wonder whom that may be? ;)

The Rev Dodgson said:

James Lovelock was 100 last month:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2209648-james-lovelock-says-artificial-intelligence-is-the-start-of-new-life/

The article is an interesting read (need to subscribe for the whole thing though), and Lovelock got up to a whole load more in his pre-Gaia days than I realised.

His ideas seem to be about a 50/50 mix of pure genius and wackily stupid (not unlike someone here).

Reading TATE
it seems that the Gaia hypothesis is still seen as inconsistent with accepted theories of evolution, which strikes me as odd, since there is an obvious mechanism by which it can work, evolution by mass extinction event, which works at two levels:

At the planetary level, if a species (or group of species) becomes so dominant that it disrupts the environment, then species become extinct until the species doing the disrupting becomes extinct, and evolution recommences with a changed environmental balance.

For any extinction event there is a non-zero probability that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop, but at the universal level evolution will continue on those planets where all the extinction events have not been total. The anthropic principle guarantees that on any planet where life has developed to a stage where at least one species can wonder where it came from, none of the extinction events to that date will have been final.

Makes sense to me.

Am I missing something?

The main criticism from me is the idea that it maintains conditions to be suitable for life. In reality conditions have changed greatly and life has evolved to survive it.

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

James Lovelock was 100 last month:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2209648-james-lovelock-says-artificial-intelligence-is-the-start-of-new-life/

The article is an interesting read (need to subscribe for the whole thing though), and Lovelock got up to a whole load more in his pre-Gaia days than I realised.

His ideas seem to be about a 50/50 mix of pure genius and wackily stupid (not unlike someone here).

Reading TATE
it seems that the Gaia hypothesis is still seen as inconsistent with accepted theories of evolution, which strikes me as odd, since there is an obvious mechanism by which it can work, evolution by mass extinction event, which works at two levels:

At the planetary level, if a species (or group of species) becomes so dominant that it disrupts the environment, then species become extinct until the species doing the disrupting becomes extinct, and evolution recommences with a changed environmental balance.

For any extinction event there is a non-zero probability that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop, but at the universal level evolution will continue on those planets where all the extinction events have not been total. The anthropic principle guarantees that on any planet where life has developed to a stage where at least one species can wonder where it came from, none of the extinction events to that date will have been final.

Makes sense to me.

Am I missing something?

(not unlike someone here)

wonder whom that may be? ;)

Actually, now you stick your hand up, there are at least two people who answer that description.
I had moll in mind :)

> His ideas seem to be about a 50/50 mix of pure genius and wackily stupid (not unlike someone here).

PMSL … gathers dignity.

The Rev Dodgson said:

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

James Lovelock was 100 last month:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2209648-james-lovelock-says-artificial-intelligence-is-the-start-of-new-life/

The article is an interesting read (need to subscribe for the whole thing though), and Lovelock got up to a whole load more in his pre-Gaia days than I realised.

His ideas seem to be about a 50/50 mix of pure genius and wackily stupid (not unlike someone here).

Reading TATE
it seems that the Gaia hypothesis is still seen as inconsistent with accepted theories of evolution, which strikes me as odd, since there is an obvious mechanism by which it can work, evolution by mass extinction event, which works at two levels:

At the planetary level, if a species (or group of species) becomes so dominant that it disrupts the environment, then species become extinct until the species doing the disrupting becomes extinct, and evolution recommences with a changed environmental balance.

For any extinction event there is a non-zero probability that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop, but at the universal level evolution will continue on those planets where all the extinction events have not been total. The anthropic principle guarantees that on any planet where life has developed to a stage where at least one species can wonder where it came from, none of the extinction events to that date will have been final.

Makes sense to me.

Am I missing something?

(not unlike someone here)

wonder whom that may be? ;)

Actually, now you stick your hand up, there are at least two people who answer that description.
I had moll in mind :)

At least Moll has qualifications. ;)

dv said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

James Lovelock was 100 last month:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2209648-james-lovelock-says-artificial-intelligence-is-the-start-of-new-life/

The article is an interesting read (need to subscribe for the whole thing though), and Lovelock got up to a whole load more in his pre-Gaia days than I realised.

His ideas seem to be about a 50/50 mix of pure genius and wackily stupid (not unlike someone here).

Reading TATE
it seems that the Gaia hypothesis is still seen as inconsistent with accepted theories of evolution, which strikes me as odd, since there is an obvious mechanism by which it can work, evolution by mass extinction event, which works at two levels:

At the planetary level, if a species (or group of species) becomes so dominant that it disrupts the environment, then species become extinct until the species doing the disrupting becomes extinct, and evolution recommences with a changed environmental balance.

For any extinction event there is a non-zero probability that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop, but at the universal level evolution will continue on those planets where all the extinction events have not been total. The anthropic principle guarantees that on any planet where life has developed to a stage where at least one species can wonder where it came from, none of the extinction events to that date will have been final.

Makes sense to me.

Am I missing something?

The main criticism from me is the idea that it maintains conditions to be suitable for life. In reality conditions have changed greatly and life has evolved to survive it.

Well the principle is pretty fuzzy, but I don’t think there is anything in it that says the equilibrium will be maintained for ever. But if you have a life system that overall tends to stabilise environmental conditions, that will tend to be beneficial for that life system.

That’s sufficiently tautological as to be undeniable, isn’t it?

>>that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop

Massive chance of that being true.

Listening to a dude on the Beeb last night and he says that they can prove that the big meteor strike that wiped out the dinosaurs happened in June.
Something about an ancient lily pond, iridium and the fact water expands on freezing.

Peak Warming Man said:

>>that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop

Massive chance of that being true.

Probably inebitaber. Hard to see how life would survive the decay of all protons and neutrons.

Peak Warming Man said:

Listening to a dude on the Beeb last night and he says that they can prove that the big meteor strike that wiped out the dinosaurs happened in June.
Something about an ancient lily pond, iridium and the fact water expands on freezing.

hmm

Peak Warming Man said:

>>that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop

Massive chance of that being true.

Well eventually, yeah, but for any individual extinction event we don’t know the probability. It would depend on the nature of the event of course.

The Rev Dodgson said:

James Lovelock was 100 last month:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2209648-james-lovelock-says-artificial-intelligence-is-the-start-of-new-life/

The article is an interesting read (need to subscribe for the whole thing though), and Lovelock got up to a whole load more in his pre-Gaia days than I realised.

His ideas seem to be about a 50/50 mix of pure genius and wackily stupid (not unlike someone here).

Reading TATE
it seems that the Gaia hypothesis is still seen as inconsistent with accepted theories of evolution, which strikes me as odd, since there is an obvious mechanism by which it can work, evolution by mass extinction event, which works at two levels:

At the planetary level, if a species (or group of species) becomes so dominant that it disrupts the environment, then species become extinct until the species doing the disrupting becomes extinct, and evolution recommences with a changed environmental balance.

For any extinction event there is a non-zero probability that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop, but at the universal level evolution will continue on those planets where all the extinction events have not been total. The anthropic principle guarantees that on any planet where life has developed to a stage where at least one species can wonder where it came from, none of the extinction events to that date will have been final.

Makes sense to me.

Am I missing something?

I think you are! You seem to be mixing the creation of an environment with evolution. The planet is not alive, it is an environment that constantly changes due to interacting actors influencing it. Animal species are alive and live within an environment and when that environment changes, it will influence the evolution of that species.

>Gaia

closest thing to that on earth is order scale conversions, structure from larger scales (areas) building smaller areas, and things.

like a dancer might do a pirouette, bring the arms in and accelerate.

dv said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Listening to a dude on the Beeb last night and he says that they can prove that the big meteor strike that wiped out the dinosaurs happened in June.
Something about an ancient lily pond, iridium and the fact water expands on freezing.

hmm

Michael Benton: This is one I use with the undergraduates, it’s a great teaser to say, well, we don’t know which year it happened but we know it happened in June. And it’s a nice story of basic science. So this was discovered about 1990 by a palaeobotanist who worked for the US geological survey, and he was working at a locality with the beautiful name of Teapot Dome in Wyoming. And this was a well-known location for some of the last dinosaurs, T Rex and triceratops and ankylosaurs, some of the great favourites. And they lived right at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago. And in these terrestrial deposits there are laid down in rivers full of dinosaurs and so on, and then beyond a certain point no more dinosaurs, but there is a coal layer the Americans call the Z Coal, and then above that nothing. And associated with the Z Coal is the iridium which is this rare metallic element that is carried by the dust of the exploding asteroid, carried around the Earth.

And this palaeobotanist found a lily pond and he could identify the lilies that were in the pond, they were very close relatives of some modern lilies. And then by looking at the structure of them under the microscope he could see that they had been frozen, because the cells within the lilies themselves, the plant cells, had exploded because when water freezes it expands, and so the sap within the lily cells had frozen, expanded, burst its walls, so he knew they had frozen. But at what stage had they frozen? They had well-developed lily flowers, and knowing the modern example he could say this is what these lilies look like in June in the modern-day and therefore very likely at the end of the Cretaceous.

And they had been frozen, and freezing is one of the instant responses to the impact of the meteorite because it hits the Earth, it drills into the crust, it blasts about out a huge amount of dust, carrying the iridium that comes from the vaporised meteorite or asteroid, and that layer of dust was thick enough to encircle the entire Earth, black out the Sun, and of course that has the effect of removing light but also removing heat. So we knew that there had been sharp freezing while the ash was lofted in the stratosphere, and obviously photosynthesis ceased for weeks or months. But the freezing was the thing, and there you are, that’s a perfect example of what geologists called uniformitarianism, which is assuming that the laws of nature are pretty uniform. It’s a kind of conservative position, like a let’s not assume that things in the past were wildly different from what they are today. And knowing a little bit of modern botany, you could actually interpret that and say that the impact happened in June.

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/dinosaurs-reveal-secrets-about-the-history-of-life-on-earth/11378580

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Listening to a dude on the Beeb last night and he says that they can prove that the big meteor strike that wiped out the dinosaurs happened in June.
Something about an ancient lily pond, iridium and the fact water expands on freezing.

hmm

Michael Benton: This is one I use with the undergraduates, it’s a great teaser to say, well, we don’t know which year it happened but we know it happened in June. And it’s a nice story of basic science. So this was discovered about 1990 by a palaeobotanist who worked for the US geological survey, and he was working at a locality with the beautiful name of Teapot Dome in Wyoming. And this was a well-known location for some of the last dinosaurs, T Rex and triceratops and ankylosaurs, some of the great favourites. And they lived right at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago. And in these terrestrial deposits there are laid down in rivers full of dinosaurs and so on, and then beyond a certain point no more dinosaurs, but there is a coal layer the Americans call the Z Coal, and then above that nothing. And associated with the Z Coal is the iridium which is this rare metallic element that is carried by the dust of the exploding asteroid, carried around the Earth.

And this palaeobotanist found a lily pond and he could identify the lilies that were in the pond, they were very close relatives of some modern lilies. And then by looking at the structure of them under the microscope he could see that they had been frozen, because the cells within the lilies themselves, the plant cells, had exploded because when water freezes it expands, and so the sap within the lily cells had frozen, expanded, burst its walls, so he knew they had frozen. But at what stage had they frozen? They had well-developed lily flowers, and knowing the modern example he could say this is what these lilies look like in June in the modern-day and therefore very likely at the end of the Cretaceous.

And they had been frozen, and freezing is one of the instant responses to the impact of the meteorite because it hits the Earth, it drills into the crust, it blasts about out a huge amount of dust, carrying the iridium that comes from the vaporised meteorite or asteroid, and that layer of dust was thick enough to encircle the entire Earth, black out the Sun, and of course that has the effect of removing light but also removing heat. So we knew that there had been sharp freezing while the ash was lofted in the stratosphere, and obviously photosynthesis ceased for weeks or months. But the freezing was the thing, and there you are, that’s a perfect example of what geologists called uniformitarianism, which is assuming that the laws of nature are pretty uniform. It’s a kind of conservative position, like a let’s not assume that things in the past were wildly different from what they are today. And knowing a little bit of modern botany, you could actually interpret that and say that the impact happened in June.

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/dinosaurs-reveal-secrets-about-the-history-of-life-on-earth/11378580

QI.

The activities of some organisms may stabilise their environment to their own advantage, but not to the advantage of various other organisms. The activities of various other organisms may destabilise their own environment but provide opportunities for competing organisms. It’s a rich tapestry and the idea that the whole thing is working in concert resulting in optimal conditions for life doesn’t seem to be the case.

Bubblecar said:

The activities of some organisms may stabilise their environment to their own advantage, but not to the advantage of various other organisms. The activities of various other organisms may destabilise their own environment but provide opportunities for competing organisms. It’s a rich tapestry and the idea that the whole thing is working in concert resulting in optimal conditions for life doesn’t seem to be the case.

Quite.

Some aspects of life on Earth behave as a limited equilibrium, but others allow runaway effects that completely change the state, and others are unresponsive to change.

Bubblecar said:

The activities of some organisms may stabilise their environment to their own advantage, but not to the advantage of various other organisms. The activities of various other organisms may destabilise their own environment but provide opportunities for competing organisms. It’s a rich tapestry and the idea that the whole thing is working in concert resulting in optimal conditions for life doesn’t seem to be the case.

the climate tends to stabilize, you could say climate has stabilizing mechanisms (accidents, but still mechanisms even if whatever happens to do this or that, even proximately), so it’d be a dubious argument that dismissed broader order in the environment not contributing to the structure of organisms in that environment. You can argue and substantiate dependencies both ways.

Bubblecar said:

The activities of some organisms may stabilise their environment to their own advantage, but not to the advantage of various other organisms. The activities of various other organisms may destabilise their own environment but provide opportunities for competing organisms. It’s a rich tapestry and the idea that the whole thing is working in concert resulting in optimal conditions for life doesn’t seem to be the case.

I don’t think that is the hypothesis.

Or it’s only an ultra-extreme version of the hypothesis anyway.

transition said:

Bubblecar said:

The activities of some organisms may stabilise their environment to their own advantage, but not to the advantage of various other organisms. The activities of various other organisms may destabilise their own environment but provide opportunities for competing organisms. It’s a rich tapestry and the idea that the whole thing is working in concert resulting in optimal conditions for life doesn’t seem to be the case.

the climate tends to stabilize, you could say climate has stabilizing mechanisms (accidents, but still mechanisms even if whatever happens to do this or that, even proximately), so it’d be a dubious argument that dismissed broader order in the environment not contributing to the structure of organisms in that environment. You can argue and substantiate dependencies both ways.

probably a superfluous not that paragraph, grunts are my first language

The Rev Dodgson said:

At the planetary level, if a species (or group of species) becomes so dominant that it disrupts the environment, then species become extinct until the species doing the disrupting becomes extinct, and evolution recommences with a changed environmental balance.

For any extinction event there is a non-zero probability that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop, but at the universal level evolution will continue on those planets where all the extinction events have not been total. The anthropic principle guarantees that on any planet where life has developed to a stage where at least one species can wonder where it came from, none of the extinction events to that date will have been final.

Makes sense to me.

Am I missing something?

Planetary chemistry.

Chemical planet with chemical lifeforms, upset the chemical equilibrium and you upset the chemical based lifeforms.

Chemical equilibrium is based on planetary chemical stability (gases within atmosphere) and species living within that stability that interact with the atmosphere of the planet which effect temperature, humidity, gas levels, ozone levels amongst other things

Something like that

Mollwollfumble can explain it better.

Tau.Neutrino said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

At the planetary level, if a species (or group of species) becomes so dominant that it disrupts the environment, then species become extinct until the species doing the disrupting becomes extinct, and evolution recommences with a changed environmental balance.

For any extinction event there is a non-zero probability that all life will become extinct, and evolution will stop, but at the universal level evolution will continue on those planets where all the extinction events have not been total. The anthropic principle guarantees that on any planet where life has developed to a stage where at least one species can wonder where it came from, none of the extinction events to that date will have been final.

Makes sense to me.

Am I missing something?

Planetary chemistry.

Chemical planet with chemical lifeforms, upset the chemical equilibrium and you upset the chemical based lifeforms.

Chemical equilibrium is based on planetary chemical stability (gases within atmosphere) and species living within that stability that interact with the atmosphere of the planet which effect temperature, humidity, gas levels, ozone levels amongst other things

Something like that

Mollwollfumble can explain it better.

If you knew all that.

Then I’m missing something.

transition said:

Bubblecar said:

The activities of some organisms may stabilise their environment to their own advantage, but not to the advantage of various other organisms. The activities of various other organisms may destabilise their own environment but provide opportunities for competing organisms. It’s a rich tapestry and the idea that the whole thing is working in concert resulting in optimal conditions for life doesn’t seem to be the case.

the climate tends to stabilize, you could say climate has stabilizing mechanisms (accidents, but still mechanisms even if whatever happens to do this or that, even proximately), so it’d be a dubious argument that dismissed broader order in the environment not contributing to the structure of organisms in that environment. You can argue and substantiate dependencies both ways.

This is obviously a planet that’s suitable for the long-term existence of life in many varied forms, and I’ll grant that the emergence of life helped make it that way.

>The main criticism from me is the idea that it maintains conditions to be suitable for life. In reality conditions have changed greatly and life has evolved to survive it.

wonder what the average ground surface temperatures were, back when life began, and before you know when the big chemistry lab was generating a lot of accidents, events, the random events generator, the mineral churn, evaporation, settling, stratification etc, and average air temperature around sea level too.

cool thing really, a hydrological cycle, three phase states, doubt there would have been much ice way back, not the poles anyway?