[U.S.] Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan: *Tinkering Truths—On Gaia, Symbiosis, and Evolution*, translated by Li Jianhui et al., proofread by Su Xiangui, Jiangxi Education Press, October 1999
http://mqxx.mhedu.sh.cn/ebook/ZX/ZX/qxdzl/index.htm
Chapter One: Sunday Visit to Oppenheimer
P10~11 pp. 17~18
Karl, a little younger than I was, liked the feeling of magnifying his own importance. He grasped Copernicus’s lesson only superficially: Galileo’s views were accepted for logical reasons, not emotional ones. Although Ptolemaic thought had been obsolete for centuries, my ambitious astronomer acted as if the earth (especially Ravi) were the absolute center of the universe. His mother, endlessly circling around her son, would ask questions that were hard to answer:
“Where did you stay along the way?”
“What are you planning to do about your young girlfriend?”
“Do you plan to interrupt your studies?”
“What kind of family was she born into—how could they allow her to travel such a long distance with a young man and no one else accompanying her?”
“Is her family well-off?”
“What does her father do?”
……
////——I’m quoting this passage purely to lighten things up~ But it really is a bit surprising: this “Dorion Sagan” turns out to be the son of the famous Carl Sagan, and Margulis, whose name I had also long admired, was not only a woman, but also Carl Sagan’s ex-wife, hehe.
Chapter Eight: The Animal Kingdom, Zoological Questions from the Perspective of Microorganisms, Lynn Margulis
P99 p. 133 The Gaia hypothesis has even been called the “grand unified theory” of biology; it is also regarded as a perspective rather than merely a scientific hypothesis.
Chapter Eleven: Gaia and Philosophy, Dorion Sagan, Lynn Margulis
P145 p. 188
Gaia is a theory that regards the Earth’s atmosphere and surface deposits as a whole. Its most general formulation is that atmospheric temperature and composition are actively regulated by the total quantity of life on Earth—the biosphere. This kind of surface regulation by and for the biosphere has existed since the earliest widely disseminated life first emerged.
P146 p. 189
Gaia thinking holds that, to a large extent, life itself created its environment. Life responds to global and even cosmic crises (such as the increasingly intense radiation from the sun, or the first appearance of oxygen in the atmosphere), and makes dynamic responses in order to ensure its own continued existence, so as to withstand the crisis or make the crisis disappear. Scientifically and philosophically alike, the Gaia hypothesis offers a clear and important theoretical window, which Lovelock (1979) called “a new view of life on Earth.”
Chapter Fourteen: What Narcissus Saw: The Ocean’s “Eyes” Dorion Sagan
P197 p. 251
The “Gaia” hypothesis
is both revolutionary science and an ancient worldview; it not only has the power to stimulate scientific research, but can also provoke religious controversy. If we push it to its logical end, it not only says that the Earth is alive, but that it is about to reproduce.
P199 pp. 253~254
In fact, Gaia is not a hypothesis. Like evolution, it is a metaphysical research program. The idea that the Earth is alive is extraordinarily fruitful and can generate many scientific models and directions for research. However, in the end it cannot be proved, and in substance this is a matter of faith. After all, it is a worldview. In attacking Gaia, the positivists are mistaken in that they themselves are also deeply mired in metaphor and metaphysics. Metaphor and metaphysics are unavoidable. When worldviews collide, the weaker one disappears in the conflict. In my view, this conference was in fact a clash of worldviews. But there was no head-on collision. Instead, the ancient panbiological theory, or animism (“the center of the Gaia hypothesis”), quietly entered the mainstream discussion. If there had been a direct confrontation, the Gaia worldview would have been swallowed alive by the mainstream worldview (atomic science and Plato’s “laws” as absolute reality). But under the cover of a provable hypothesis, Gaia was sneaked into respectable scientific discussion. We never imagined that at a serious scientific conference the participants would take their worldviews as the main topic. Yet that is what happened, and Gaia, like the Trojan Horse, escaped the defenses of the fully armed metaphysical realism (“science”) by disguising itself as a hypothesis. Now that the Gaia worldview has taken up residence within the metaphysical realist worldview, it cannot be extracted without doing damage to both. Our entire conception of life and its environment has been called into question. What is life? What is technology? And what is the environment?
Perhaps another Greek myth, because it did not lose itself on the dangerous battlefield of truth, can better summarize the present philosophical situation: Narcissus once stood before the tranquil waves, gazing at the water that reflected his own image. He had never seen himself before, and he was enthralled. Now, we gaze at the screen of satellite imaging technology. Once again we see water. Again and again… But what is “ourselves”? Whose or what is this body?
Chapter Fifteen: A Good Four-Letter Word Dorion Sagan Lynn Margulis
P205 p. 261
Although Gaia has been labeled untestable and “unscientific,” the hypothesis has prompted multi-faceted research into global biogeochemical processes. Dimethyl sulfide—a compound released by algae that may be related to the regulation of Earth’s temperature—would certainly still not have been discovered today without the impetus of the Gaia hypothesis, given its climatic importance. Perhaps, as a whole, the Gaia hypothesis can neither be verified nor falsified, but rather, as the philosopher Karl Popper said of Darwin’s theory of evolution, it is “a metaphysical research program.”
P206 p. 262
Like psychoanalysis, Gaia theory restores the dialogue between science (logos) and myth (mythos). Much of the sociocultural support Gaia has received is chiefly because the myth still holds great meaning for us. In our era, saturated with nihilism, monotheism, “God is dead,” and similar ideas, Gaia is an optimistic and affirmative doctrine. Its success must be attributed, wholly or at least in part, to its name. More subtle connections supplement the obvious link between Gaia theory and the intellectual roots of Greece. From a paternal god to a “feminized” mother earth, from a god in heaven to a measurable entity veiled by the atmosphere: all this requires rigorous mythic analysis. In ecological language, Gaia theory does not merely see the earth as a place or a home, but as a living organism; it brings to mind Narcissus, who gazed into the water and fell in love at first sight with a reflection he had never before seen. When humankind first looked back at the Earth from the darkness of space and became enthralled by it, a similar phenomenon occurred. Narcissus drowned; will humanity likewise meet the same fate because Gaia theory emphasizes the Earth as a living being?
Chapter Sixteen: Biogeography and Gaia: More Than 150 Years of Funding for Environmental Science Lynn Margulis Gregory Henkel
P209 p. 206
The following conclusion is therefore unavoidable: experts in geophysics and atmospheric science must learn biology, and biologists must know something about geophysics and atmospheric science. For a very long time our atmospheric experts could not figure out where methane came from, and many of our biologists knew nothing at all about where that methane was going.
Chapter Seventeen: Gaia and Martian Colonization Lynn Margulis Owen West
P224 p. 284
Gaia has long been called the “Earth Goddess” or “the Earth as an individual living being,” and these are misleading terms. Since many scientific writings encounter problems of misunderstanding terminology when mentioning Gaia, we propose a physiological version of the Gaia hypothesis.
Chapter Nineteen: The Pustule Called Human Lynn Margulis
P251 pp. 317~318 David Suzuki and Peter Knudtson have a splendid book, *Wisdom of the Elders* (1992), which points out that many traditional cultural patterns are more conducive to learning biology than ours. One example is the Chewong people of Malaysia’s concept of “medmesign.” “Medmesign” means “different eyes.” Each type of animal sees this world through its own eyes. There is the way the tiger observes, the way the water snail observes, the way the giant lizard observes, and the way humans observe. “Medmesign” refers to each animal observing this world through its own perceptions. The Chewong identify with a partner way of life, clarifying their moral responsibilities through their attitudes and daily activities.
In one Chewong story, a family is relentlessly pursued by a greedy tiger. Bongso, the Chewong spiritual leader and hero, has an innate ability to understand the world of other beings without losing his own perceptual capacity. In the end he succeeds in rescuing the frightened family by setting a trap with sharp spears deep in the forest, stabbing the tiger to death. When the villagers came to watch, he blew a breath of fairy magic onto the head of the slain beast and then asked it, “Why do you want to eat us?”
Looking up, the tiger said with its last breath, “All I see is meat. All I see is meat. All I see is meat.” The tiger used “medmesign” to look at the fleeing family. Indeed, every living being understands truth through observing with its own eyes. For the Chewong, meat is the wild game they track in the forest. The man-eating tiger sees mother and child, and all it sees is meat. Everything our culture sees is money. All we see is money. We see nothing but money. Meanwhile, forests are being burned, rivers and oceans polluted, children neglected, and people starving.////——This story is quite interesting and thought-provoking.
P257 p. 327
The Gaia hypothesis, which some have dismissed as a fantasy of New Age crystal-ball enthusiasts, has thus been greatly misunderstood in the scientific community. Yet it demonstrates the foundational role of the life sciences in understanding the Earth. One reason it has not been accepted is that it exposes the inadequacy of evolutionary theory, a theory developed in the absence of knowledge of climatology and geology. Gaia thinking is not very popular because many scientists hope to continue doing what they normally do and are unwilling to venture beyond their own disciplinary boundaries into other fields. It will take at least a generation before the Gaia hypothesis is understood and properly researched.
Gaia has been called the “Earth Goddess” or “the Earth as a single living being.” These are misleading phrases.
I object to the analogy of Gaia as a single organism chiefly because no single living creature can survive by eating its own waste, nor is there any organism that can recycle its own food by itself. A more accurate formulation is that Gaia is a huge ecosystem, an interactive system whose main components are organisms. This is most clearly shown in examples of biological influence on major geological activity (old note: the text on that website reads: “Nothing illustrates Gaia more clearly than examples of the influence of organisms on major geological activity”), as described by Peter Westbroek in his fascinating book *Life as a Geological Force* (1991).
Gaia is noisy. If we listen carefully, we can hear what sounds like our Earth partners—30 million different species—singing to us. Do you know the lyrics? “Before I met you, I lived without you; now, without you, I will continue to live.” ////——Margulis repeatedly stressed that Gaia should not be understood as an individual living being. Still, the metaphor of seeing Gaia as “Mother Earth” is perfectly natural. And to regard the Earth as “alive” and “living” (and not merely as an “ecosystem”), while at the same time not seeing it as a living individual, does seem somewhat contradictory. In fact, the key issue lies in how one understands what counts as an individual life form. Margulis’s “autopoiesis theory” and what mainstream biology, or what Margulis called “neo-Darwinism,” are different here. In Margulis’s view, it makes no sense to discuss a single, isolated living individual; any living individual or species is always in mutual relation with other life. Margulis uses the concept of the “autopoietic system” to replace the biological individual in mainstream biology—“the simplest and smallest known autopoietic entity is a single bacterial cell; the largest should be Gaia (p. 268, p. 340)”.
P26
0~261 pp. 331~332
Conclusion
Kierkegaard said that the less support an idea has, the more fanatically one needs to believe in it. A patently absurd idea requires absolute and unwavering loyalty, and this includes the ideas discussed by Suzuki and Knudtson (1992). We hold such fanatical beliefs that they are so deeply embedded in our perceptions that we cannot clearly recognize them. Now I hope you will agree:
We have a cultural system
that ignores the air and water
and our biological inheritance.
We have a society
that believes garbage disappears,
rather than merely being transferred;
mistakes linen paper and metal discs
for food, and searches the world according to their needs;
and rewards scholars who increase the rate at which money flows.
We are enduring a culture that wants to turn the whole Earth into its own godly image; an angry city landlord.
Of course, our culture rejects the teachings of life.
Of course, our culture does not consider bacteria, protozoa, and fungi as microorganisms
and also looks down on strangers
It knows no other way.
The bright spot in the photograph (Fig. 19.6) is a crowded city. “The Earth is a beautiful place,” Nietzsche said, “but upon it there is a pustule called human.”
////——Margulis’s sharp critique of the perspective of mainstream science is profound and worth taking seriously. Of course, at certain moments Margulis does seem overly vehement. As for “Gaia,” I paid quite a lot of attention to it when I wrote my paper on ecological philosophy last year. I very much appreciate the metaphor of the “unity of Heaven and humanity” embodied in this perspective, though I do not intend to become a follower of Margulis or Lovelock.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Science Education in the United States Lynn Margulis
P312 p. 397
Science was not originally a profession, and ecology is no exception. Science is a way of discovering the world through probing and direct feeling. Active observation and experimentation are better than rote memorization of word lists or textbooks. World-class ecologists have made us interested in ecosystems by studying coral reefs, ponds, deserts, forests, and salt marshes that are part of their professional lives. Why can’t these bewildered students be freed from the excessive education imposed on them? Why can’t serious college-level science courses teach science as if it were literary art, while respecting quantitative inquiry? Why can’t the study of “natural history” regain the respect it once had? (old note: the website’s wording is “Why can’t those serious science courses at universities, while taking quantitative inquiry into account, teach science like literary art? Why can’t the study of ‘natural history’ retain its lofty status?”) ////——Margulis’s hope accords with Professor Wu Guosheng’s advocacy of “natural history.” Contemporary science education indeed has many problems; one important predicament is that science is becoming more and more boring. Of course, specialization is an unavoidable trend, but specialization does not mean that professional boundaries must be rigidly fixed, nor does it mean that science is destined not to approach the non-specialist public in an accessible way. Yet today’s science education often continues down the wrong path. For example, even in popular science education for primary school students, the “image” of science is often symbolized by a bald, bespectacled old man in a white coat, as if to tell children that scientists will look like this. And even disciplines like biology, botany, zoology, and ecology, which should be directly engaged with nature, often require one to devote oneself to dealing with chalk and paper while staying far away from the field. Such education does indeed help cultivate public respect for science, but it does not help attract people to science; thus respect easily develops into blind faith. Therefore, a proper way of popularizing science is extremely important, but it is very difficult to get the measure right—one must both establish respect for science and attract people to it rather than teaching them to worship it from afar, while also avoiding the use of flashy mystifications (such as UFOs and supernatural powers) to pass themselves off as science in order to attract an unwitting public.
February 15, 2006
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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