Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Spiritus ...

... THE EARTH EXHALES. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

"... there is no reasonable doubt that greenhouse gases released by industrialisation, together with the destruction of forest for farming and more recently bio-fuels, are at the back of global warming today." Professor Gray should acquaint himself with Climate Debate Daily. So should everyone.
I would not describe myself as a global warming denier, but I am skeptical enough - given the inconsistent and contradictory evidence - to consider myself agnostic.

I also do not see that the Gaia theory is a theory in the same scientific sense that Darwin's theory is. But I do find this interesting:
Lovelock is generous to a fault in his response to defenders of neo-Darwinian orthodoxy such as Richard Dawkins, who attacked the theory because of its seeming reintroduction of purpose into biology - an objection Lovelock was able to rebut when he developed a model of a self-regulating planetary system, Daisyworld, that functions in neo-Darwinian terms. Gaia theory may yet suggest that the currently dominant version of Darwinism needs to be revised, but the theory can be formulated in terms that are consistent with the highly reductive accounts of evolution favoured by most biologists.
This gives me the distinct impression that, for some people, what is of utmost importance is that evolution conform to certain reductionist presuppositions, as distinct from going wherever the evidence leads.

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