As ever I'm behind on my reading and have only just managed to look at the 26 October edition of New Scientist which contains an article by Toby Tyrell puporting to test the Gaia hypothesis. Indeed, Tyrell has recently published a book on the subject.
Being late to reading the article reminds me that I didn't pick up James Lovelock's original work until several years after it hit the bookshops. I recall thinking at the time that it was a wonderful theory - appealing to the new-age hippy in me if nothing else (actually that's being mean to Lovelock - it is genuinely a fascinating and well-worked theory). However, I couldn't see any conclusive proof that his hypothesis was correct. Being an idle *** I didn't take that thought any further; and I suspect that there were/are many others in that boat. Tyrell has, however, set out to test Lovelock's main propositions.
To cut a long story short, Tyrell's conclusion is that the Gaia hypothesis is not an accurate picture of how the world works (though he does point to some "mini-Gaias" such as the thermoregulation of the interior of terminte mounds). In some ways this is a great pity - there is something comforting about the thought of a self-regulating world. However, it rather looks as though we shall have to tackle the various environmental issues confronting us on the basis of our world system being very much more fragile that the Gaia hypothesis suggests - it won't just happen!
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