Is it fair to think of earth as an organism in which we live on?

Lewis Thomas wrote a famous series of 29 essays for The New England Journal of Medicine and eventually published in 1974 as a book and entitled The Lives of a Cell; Notes of a Biology Watcher

The Lives of a Cell: (Title essay):

This essay focuses on how connected humanity is to nature and how we must make strides to understand our role. Thomas argues that even our own bodies are not solely ours since the mitochondria and other organelles are descended from other organisms. He creates a metaphor of the Earth as a giant cell itself with humans just as one part of a vast system.

Thomas, an elegant writer, was a physician, immunology researcher, dean, poet, etymologist, and essayist.

(sort of analogy thingy?)

I think it is. I believe we are slowly killing it.

It is a complex system and when one thing goes a bit off you can do real damage. Humans are kinda like cancer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

A rather old and well thought out hypothesis.

I disagree, but many biologists ascribe to all or some tenets of this concept.

I think without homeostatic mechanisms in general life would have not been able to form. The fact that high temperature drives CO2 back into certain rocks, thus lowering the temperature, meant that there was never a run-away CO2 spike that killed off life before it was able to form.
This homeostasis is seen again inside cells and organisms, which is why the analogy developed. But I feel the Gaia hypothesis puts the cart before the horse: homeostasis is important to life, but it is not a sign of life itself.

Absolutely agree, have since the 70’s.
Yes, Gaia.

do you think a piece of bread infested with all kinds of mould and bugs is one single organism?

For a thought experiment, it isn’t bad.

If you’re looking for reality, no. The earth is not alive, it cannot procreate, it does not process energy via intake and output. It is made up of inanimate material.

In some respects I think so, it depends on how you define organism. Are the bacteria in my gut separate organisms? how about individual cells? Since organisms are codependent on each other you could make that argument. The Gaia thing however, is neat and clean and politically correct and probably….wrong.

I took many steps over the years from a theistic new age believer in crystals and chakras to my current hard science atheist skepticism. Belief in the Gaia Hypothesis was one of my last steps. Of course, I now know it’s complete woo-woo bunk, but it was an attractive alternative to me at the time.

No it’s a rock with destructive little things called humans.

I think it is fair.

I am no biologist, but the Gaia hypothesis makes a lot of sense to me. Life alters the Earth in such a way as to make it more habitable. Just think of the huge change brought about by plants. They added enough oxygen to take up about 20% of the atmosphere.

Yes, we are leeches sucking mother earth dry. I would love to go off grid completely some day with hubs.

@LostInParadise before Oxygen there was a lot of methane and other chemicals in the air that are toxic to us. But the life forms of the time had adapted to them and even needed them. When oxygen hit, it was so toxic to them that the oxygenation of the earth caused the biggest mass extinction ever. Doesn’t seem very life-formy to me.

Good point. I am curious though where the previous organisms got their energy. Being able to get energy from sunlight was a huge advantage for the biosphere – both plants and the animals that were able to consume them and each other using oxygen.

they got it from methane and sulfuric acid and all the other chemicals abound in the water and air. And you’re right, photosynthesis is such the bomb that cholrophyl has barely changed in a billion years

here is all the change to chlorophyl in a billion years

@ragingloli When you die and return to the dirt and ocean then I will answer your question with a newer question: How did organic data comprise itself from inorganic material.

As a metaphor, yes. Otherwise, no. We’d have to change the definition of the word organism. An ecosystem is a complex system, but it isn’t an organism either. Likewise the earth is a complex system with feedback loops and regulation. Even our sun works like a thermostat. Nuclear fusion slowing down means less outbound radiation, means gravity meets less resistance, means more nuclear fusion, means more outbound radiation, means gravity meets more resistance, means nuclear fusion slowing down… Is the sun an organism?