Talk:Earth system science/Archive 1

Moving most of a section from Gaia hypothesis here
Gaia_hypothesis contains a lot of redundancy within the Gaia hypothesis article and looks to me good food for the somewhat lacking article Earth system science. Any objections to clean/move here the good stuff, linking properly from that article to here? --Qgil (talk) 00:44, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Done--Qgil (talk) 15:09, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikilink Gaia hypothesis from "Gaia theory"?
Wikilink Gaia hypothesis from "Gaia theory"? 99.181.128.80 (talk) 02:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point. Done! --Qgil (talk) 05:17, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Removal by Toby Tyrrell of material pertinent to his own book & extreme COI
I was aghast to notice recently that the Gaia material was all expunged from this article - when looking into it, I saw that it was none other than Toby Tyrrell himself who had done this! He did this without any discussion, and simply wrote this to explain his edit:

(removed section of little relevance (about the Gaia hypothesis rather than Earth system science))

I think that this is quite remarkable, and might be one of the single worst cases of COI that I have come upon personally: that is, as the author of the most full-frontal attempt to rebut the validity of Gaia theory, Tyrrell obviously profits personally and directly by preventing a sense of connection between the ideas of Gaia theory and Earth System Science. As soon as these things are seen to overlap so completely as to have merged, his arguments completely come apart. No wonder he wanted this removed!

But what is beyond belief, and what makes this so particularly and flagrantly out of bounds, is that the main part of the material that he expunged was a citation from the Amsterdam Declaration of 2001, clearly a statement of ESS, and Tyrrell himself, in his recent book, quotes the exact same material, before setting out to demolish Gaia theory, and Tyrrell says that it sounds just like something out of Lovelock and Gaia theory!

Therefore, saying that removing this by calling it "of little relevance" is disingenuous would be an extraordinary understatement! I strongly feel that this material should be put back in, and perhaps made even more clear and improved upon, to state where the overlap of ESS and Gaia is, what are the differences, etc.

OK, I just went ahead and restored this whole section - however, I invite everyone involved in this entry to think about participating in improvement of this section - exactly how can we say today that ESS and Gaia theory relate? How do they differ, if indeed they do?

I myself will start altering the section and improving it soon, but would be happy to have other people's input. I strongly feel that Toby Tyrrell, on the other hand, should NOT be involved after what he did already - in general, if he wants to input material about why he disagrees, he could state it here first, and we could put it in for him - but removal of others' work because it would discredit his own positions, which is really what that seems to have been, is absolutely not what Wikipedia is supposed to be about! Terradactyl (talk) 01:58, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

The Earth System Science article needs to be more about Earth System Science and less about Gaia
If Gaia is accepted as being right (which it isn't) then of course it would be fundamentally important for ESS and should be featured strongly here. However, the main reason I changed the article is not because of the scientific disagreement but rather because the section I removed makes the article seem biased and out of touch with modern science, i.e. what profesional Earth system scientists actually talk about at conferences and in the articles and books that they write (e.g. topics such as Earth's radiation balance; carbon and nutrient cycling; interactions between hydro- geo- cryo- hydro- & bio-sphere; response of Earth syst6em to anthropogenic impacts). Gaia does come up, but not so frequently as before and many now reject it (see Recent Criticism section of Gaia hypothesis article, with many references to the scientific literature). The section I removed makes it seem as if Gaia is at the heart of all scientific discourse in Earth system science, that Gaia and Earth system science are almost synonomous with one another, and that Gaia is almost universally believed. These are all simply wrong or at best misleading - they give a false impression of this area of science.

I could be seen as having a particular viewpoint and will not make further edits. However, I hope that someone will make the article more up-to-date and representative of Earth system science in general, and less of a vehicle for disputed Gaian ideas. (Tobytyrrell (talk) 08:03, 27 July 2015 (UTC))


 * Thank you. In an effort to keep this article as neutral as possible, I will try to come up with a way to express the essence of the objection stated here, and add it to the entry, but without removing the material I just put in, since it in every way accords with Wikipedia rules and is accurate, well-cited, etc.


 * I hope that if anyone else feels drawn to removing the new content, as suggested in Tyrrell's objection, they will do the following first: please read philosopher Bruno Latour's essay here - http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/138-THOUSAND-NAMES.pdf, suggesting, at considerable length, why the objections of Toby Tyrrell stated at the opening of this (i.e., that "Gaia" is not "right") can quite easily be ridiculed. Then note that Tyrrell himself is saying that, on the other hand, if that condition is met, and Gaia IS right, then of course having such a section as I just added would be highly appropriate.


 * Secondly, note the citations I give: the last one, discussing Gaia vs. the Earth system, is from perhaps the most influential climate scientists in Europe, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who directs one of the world's leading climate centers, along with Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, and others I didn't even mention in the citation - Ken Caldeira, a leading member of Stanford's Earth System Science program, and Director of the Carnegie Global Ecology program, and Timothy Lenton, one of the foremost climate scientists in the UK, considered by many the leading scientific authority globally on tipping points in Earth systems.


 * Clearly, they all profoundly disagree with what Tyrrell is trying to assert here! Fundamentally, the way I like to see it, personally, is that Toby Tyrrell and other 'anti-Gaia folk' keep trying to attack the Gaia hypothesis as stated roughly from the time of its inception through Lovelock's 1979 popular book Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. These critics are, indeed, quite right to say that Gaia was then "wrong". But the needed correction was made almost 30 years ago now! Indeed, very soon afterward, by the early 80s, in response to the critique of the neo-Darwinists, the idea was quite transformed. Ever since, and very clearly by the time of The Ages of Gaia, in 1987, Gaia - its actual science and mechanisms, etc (i.e., not any philosophical layering one might put on top of that science) -  has been identical to what is now termed "ESS,"  and this is just what the world's leading scientists are saying in my final citation. Therefore, the condition Tyrrell states IS met, as those leading scientists explain, and therefore the section should stay.


 * Remember, Tyrrell himself recognizes, in his comment above, that in this case there should be a section like what I just added, he calls it "fundamentally important", and says it "should be featured strongly here." I might add that the final part of his comment, on what the scientists actually talk about when they are at conferences, etc, makes little sense to me. Again, look at the quote I mentioned, and think of Crutzen or Shellnhuber at actual conferences, dealing with their newest papers, etc. Of course they aren't talking all the time about Gaia! They aren't talking about the "Earth system" all the time, either! Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist by training, got the Nobel for his work on stratospheric ozone depletion, showing how N2O could impact stratospheric NO and hence impact O3. At a conference he might be talking to atmospheric chemists about complex chains of reactions in stratospheric chemistry. Of course, when Lovelock was later the first to test Molina and Rowland's theory on stratospheric O3, for which they got the Nobel, dealing with CFC impacts and stratospheric O3, Lovelock wasn't just "talking about Gaia" either, he was trying to make an accurate stratospheric reading from a rented aircraft, and was perhaps the only person capable of doing such a reading at the time. So, this just doesn't make any sense - one is often dealing with the finer details in science, not the big picture of how the whole field works and is framed. But that big picture makes a difference, and what Tyrrell is saying here just does not fit the opinions of the most influential scientists who have commented on this issue, or the obvious historical record. That's why the section needs to be there and why I added it. To me, personally, it is Tyrrell who is beginning to seem "out of touch", if he keeps refusing to listen to what the leading scientists in the world are saying. Now one of the leading philosophers has weighed in on Toby Tyrrell's viewpoints as well.


 * Again, I will nevertheless try to find some way to express his objections. Terradactyl (talk) 15:53, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I've rolled back on the introduction of Gaia-esque material to this article. The article needs expanding, for sure, but it should reflect what actually occurs in ESS. Gaia is currently something of a fringe topic in mainstream research. This is covered to a degree over at Gaia hypothesis, but is also clear from a perusal of the research literature (rather than the views of a few eminent scientists). A quick check of the use of "Gaia" (as "topic" - so pretty broad) in the research literature for 2014 turns up 195 articles. Most of these deal with an astronomical instrument called Gaia which has nothing to do with the Earth. A small number appear entirely unrelated to ESS - possibly just using Gaia as a nice acronym. Of the rest, where the use of Gaia appears to have some relationship with the Earth, almost all of these are not ESS-related, and instead relate to sustainability research (or even religion). There are a handful (~5) that do touch on Gaia as ESS, but these are include critical pieces (e.g. one by Tobytyrrell) and a review of Lovelock's latest book (which is news to me). One of the critical pieces that directly touches on Gaia (van Baalen & Huneman, 2014) includes this specific paragraph on Gaia:


 * "The extreme holistic or vitalist views [...] according to which an ecosystem would be a sort of large living being (a view that spans a long intellectual history, originating in the old Stoic view of the cosmos as an animal, and leading to versions of the Gaia hypothesis used in earth systems sciences; Lovelock and Margulis 1974) have been largely abandoned, but a weakened form of the ecosystem/organism analogy may still be fruitful in contemporary research, at least as a heuristic tool."


 * All of which is to say that, if this article is to include Gaia-esque material, it should be properly contextualised rather than made to appear the dominant philosophy in ESS. So, proper citations to work dealing explicitly and directly with Gaia, and in balance with what's generally going on in the field of ESS. There are thousands of papers published each year on ESS topics, ranging from observational studies of the present-day, Earth history investigations, theoretical treatments and research based around building models of the Earth. Gaia is simply not well represented among these because, at this time, it does not appear to be an accurate description of the Earth system. However, it is also clear that it receives some support in the research community, and it may one day accrue more evidence that supports it. But the article needs to reflect the balance of current ESS. Cheers, --P LUMBAGO 08:43, 3 August 2015 (UTC)


 * P.S. On a specific point above, Paul Crutzen is mentioned in largely pro-Gaia terms. I'm not sure that this is quite right - see here for example. The point being that I think it's easy to selectively read statements by eminent scientists. --P LUMBAGO 10:16, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Dear Plumbago -

I rather strongly disagree with what you are trying to do here, which ultimately is to play something of a semantic game, as I will try to demonstrate below.

First, though, concerning the Gaia hypothesis article, four months ago I put in some of my very first serious Wiki edits, at that article, and you removed them all!! In some instances, you put back things that were absurdly incompetent, removing factual, well-cited, and neutral content I had worked hard on. I very much did not appreciate it. This is particularly true of material concerning CLAW. Others also disagreed with what you put back in, I might add. It really seemed like you were not aware of the research literature or what the issues and problems or current state of the research were. As I had noted in my edits, Quinn & Bates 2011 did NOT, in their review article, mention the first study using a fully coupled model, Thomas et al, published almost two years before theirs. But, to be fair, I also did note that certain things in the Quinn & Bates review DID correctly typify the more current understanding of the issues involved in CLAW, which basically has been one of complexification from the initial conception as presented in the first Charlson et al paper, decades earlier.

Ever since you removed all my carefully made edits, I have been intending to go back to the Gaia article, and still do intend to do so before this summer is over, I might add. However, following the ESS article as well, and then noticing the removal by Toby Tyrrell of Gaia material as "irrelevant", I decided to start there instead, since I believe this was a profoundly improper thing to do, and I don't think that your re-removal of the material a second time is appropriate Wiki editing either, on quite a few grounds.

The reason that your stated justification for removing the Gaia material which I reintroduced into the article - although in a form altered, and improved, I believe, from its earlier inclusion by someone else - is tantamount to a semantic game, is that you are saying that if one does a computer search of the word "Gaia" in ESS papers it doesn't occur, therefore Gaia is irrelevant to ESS, and material that concerns Gaia should be expunged from the ESS article. By that criteria, neo-Darwinists should not be allowed to call their work "Darwinism", since they are dealing with the language of molecular biology, statistics, math, etc, none of which occur in any computer search of Darwin's actual writings, for obvious reasons. Moreover, Lynn Margulis's own research mostly did not ever include the word Gaia, unless she is talking about how the whole Earth system is constructed, operates, etc. For example, her late research on Bryozoa, etc, would of course be part of what you are calling the "thousands of papers" that are "part of" ESS research, but of course none of it ever mentions "Gaia" - and this is from a primary developer of Gaia theory! The whole point is that, to be historically accurate and intellectually honest, you need to allow the true historical relationship between ESS and Gaia theory be discussed. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! Lovelock joked somewhere about how he was once at NCAR in the cafeteria, and two young researchers were arguing about what to call a paper, and - not knowing who he was -  one of them gave a possible title, and the other said, "No, are you kidding, call it that and it'll be seen as closet Gaia" or something like that. It's so taboo that even the hint of the name, without actually naming it, was already too much! This is exactly why what I was doing was a great improvement over the earlier Gaia material in the ESS article, as I was explaining how we have gotten to where we are.

It is funny that you point to the Crutzen citation that you do. Did you read it? And did you read as well the Lenton passage that refers to it a couple of pages earlier? Please do so. Lenton mentions specifically how Crutzen (Crutzen, 2002) unfortunately continued to argue against early presentations of the Gaia hypothesis. Further, in the current Crutzen, if you read the whole thing, he exposes a lack of any knowledge of the history of Gaia theory, and also expresses his agreement with the theory, once it is correctly construed - note that, at the bottom of column one of box 2.7, Crutzen cites how in a "newer" formulation of Gaia "....the focus shifted to understanding the emergent properties of the whole system....." Crutzen agrees with this view, and says that, "If this is the new Gaia," then it is close "to what is now understood about the Earth System". What is amazing about all this is this "new" Gaia was completely formed by the mid-80s, 20 years before that was published! Right after the first popular book in 79', Lovelock and Margulis responded quickly to the meaningful criticisms, and altered the theory - in Lovelock's The Ages of Gaia (first published in 1988), the definition of Gaia is framed exactly in the same terms as Crutzen agrees with above. Indeed, this evolution of the idea is a main theme of the opening of the book. I suggest that you check it out!

As a result, this means that you are simply incorrect, when you write -

"Gaia is simply not well represented among these because, at this time, it does not appear to be an accurate description of the Earth system."

If Gaia is shown to be more or less synonymous with ESS, then clearly that is NOT the case! The real reason it is "not well represented" lies elsewhere, and I was trying to elucidate some of the much needed history behind this in my recent edits, as opposed to simply restoring the earlier Gaia material to the article.

The fact of the matter is, I already cited the leading experts for this - that is, people who have expertise in BOTH Gaian and non-Gaian views - and they concur that this is the case, and equate ESS and Gaia.

You should only be reverting some of this material (and I might add that you reverted material that had nothing to do with any of this, and which from any point of view improved the article!) if you can come up with at least one single expert source who disagrees with this. Obviously you could not do so. After all, even Toby Tyrrell, who tried to "take down" Gaia in his recent book, agrees there on the very close relationship between Gaia and ESS, which I directly cited in my recent edits, and which you removed!

A curiosity: both Crutzen and Tyrrell eventually expose their true motivations quite clearly. For each one, it is clear the negative attitudes only stem from the fear that referring to Earth's "self-regulation" might seem to suggest that we don't have to worry about climate change, etc. Note that Crutzen even calls the Amsterdam Declaration opening "grossly misleading," suggesting just how far from consensus opinion Crutzen is on this.

My guess would be that, given his taking part in the publication I cited, with a bunch of leading climatologists who are also "Gaians" - indeed, as I noted, these were some of the most important climate scientists in Europe - Crutzen today would not say the same thing at all.......But I am only guessing on this.......

Terradactyl (talk) 04:10, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Plumbago - Btw, I want to add that I will work with you on your legitimate concerns here. For the moment, I have simply restored my prior version, but I will not leave it as it was, and I will alter it to accord with your emphasizing that the actual word Gaia - and Tyrrell said this, too - actually isn't used in much work that is considered "ESS research". I'm happy to do that. Further, if you feel that you want to take on how ESS and Gaia are actually NOT more or less synonymous, then by all means please ADD that material, with citations, etc, but please, refrain from simply making a wholesale removal of mine, since it obviously IS well cited and clearly is relevant. I mean, if there is any controversy over the relationship between ESS and Gaia, the ESS article would clearly be one of the two places where it should be dealt with, right? Where else should it be discussed, if not in this article and the Gaia one? Therefore, you have no legitimate grounds for removal of material about this issue.

Further, there are some strange signals in your wording here - for example, you write something about how, if there is to be discussion of Gaia in the ESS article, "it should be properly contextualised rather than made to appear the dominant philosophy in ESS." But who is talking about "philosophy" here? This is a matter of the mechanisms involved, and like the leading experts I cited said - the leading climate and systems scientists in Europe, like Schellnhuber and Lenton - the mechanisms are the same, but the language is the problem. If you want to consider Gaia a "philosophy", that is your own take on it, but that's a whole different discussion.

Secondly, this is really a matter of factual accuracy about the true history of science. Something started first in the little field of Gaia science, and then this took off and was adopted by consensus science now dubbed "Earth System Science." What you are trying to do is tantamount to expunging the historical record, like trying to tell the history, let's say, of the railroads in the U.S., and someone keeps expunging that slaves happen to have built a good deal of it.......why would anyone do that? Terradactyl (talk) 05:12, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I've taken it back out. Please await discussion -- and long walls of text tend to be by-passed. This article may have some relation to Lovelock's work, but is not synonymous with it and what appear to be loong promotional quotes simply don't belong. Vsmith (talk) 12:58, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Dear Vsmith - Indeed, I was discussing the issues at hand: after my talking about citations from the most prominent, authoritative scientists involved in the relation between ESS and Gaia theory, who simply equate them, I feel that your talking about "promotional quotes" is truly inappropriate. This is about the history of science. I do agree that there is a big imbalance in the article as I had it, in that this material about its historical development is vastly larger than the tiny entry, since that was also made much shorter, intentionally, by anti-Gaia enthusiasts (ie, Tyrrell's coming into this and editing the entry himself, which makes this fact clear as day, and a huge COI against all protocol).

I can suggest various ways out of this impasse, and will go ahead soon......but I will wait to hear the discussion a bit first....

Terradactyl (talk) 14:48, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks Vsmith.


 * Terradactyl — thanks for taking the time to articulate your viewpoint. However, IMHO you need to demonstrate that the material that you included is representative of what scientists are actually doing around the world. Yes, it is certainly the case that there are a number of prominent and eminent scientists who take the Gaia hypothesis seriously in their work, but there are plenty more who don't and don't even bother to formally dismiss it. No one is suggesting that the Gaia hypothesis has no place here, merely that its position in contemporary research needs to be reported accurately. If, as you suggest, it's an important hypothesis, it should be referred to again and again in ESS research, but if it's only rarely mentioned, and then either passingly or critically, then it's difficult to interpret this as pointing to a key role. For reference, this is precisely why I used a "computer search" - this is a straightforward and an unambiguous way to evaluate whether real, working scientists are using ideas such as the Gaia hypothesis in their work.


 * Changing tack, consider a key endeavour of ESS: the CMIP process. This involves research groups around the world building models of how the whole Earth system operates (including living components), and is used to inform our understanding of the likely impacts of anthropogenic climate change. So, assuming that the Gaia hypothesis is a foundational part of ESS, we should expect to find such research groups making explicit use of it. As such, it should be straightforward for you to point to primary literature in support of your interpretation of how ESS operates today (i.e. work-a-day scientific papers in addition to the open-to-interpretation Amsterdam declaration included previously). Of course, CMIP isn't the be-all-and-end-all of ESS, but it involves a significant proportion of the sorts of Earth system models that one would expect Gaia to be important within.


 * Please also understand that, while mainstream Earth system science and the Gaia hypothesis overlap on a number of concepts (e.g. that certain current features of the Earth are the product of living systems; that living systems play a critical role in large-scale biogeochemical cycles), the Gaia hypothesis goes (far) beyond these and requires that living systems act in a fashion that drives planetary-scale homeostasis. Just because ESS incorporates some of these same elements, it does not follow that they owe their adoption within it to the Gaia hypothesis, nor that the Gaia hypothesis is currently important in ESS. Much of the core of ESS (e.g. energy balance, nutrient cycling, etc.) is much longer-standing than the Gaia hypothesis, and is instead simply the result of the extension, and melding, of fields such as geology and ecology. To be fair, Lovelock played a role in the recognition that planetary atmospheres will be altered by living systems (and in other areas), but Gaia is much more than just this (even weak Gaia).


 * Incidentally, regarding your concern about my use of the term "philosophy", perhaps instead read "paradigm", or however else you wish to describe particular traditions / movements / conceptual models / rationales / etc. in science. Given that the much maligned Bruno Latour has been invoked already, I'd have thought that the semi-neutral term "philosophy" might have been OK here. I certainly don't wish to get into navel-gazing.


 * Cheers, --P LUMBAGO 15:03, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Plumbago -

Let me think about all this a bit. But it seems very clear to me that all these removals, 3 of them now, of ALL mention of Gaia from the ESS article, seem to me to be highly motivated, specious, suspect, and an act of revisionist history, simply because the true story makes you uncomfortable. I mean, in terms of the whole notion that to include Gaia it would need to be part of what "ESS scientists" (whoever that would be.....such a thing hardly exists, really) talk about, let me just be the devil's advocate here: let's say that Jim Lovelock had died in 1981, and no one had continued with Gaia theory after his 1979 book. Had the idea remained like that, it would have rightly been seen as a flawed hypothesis, but if it were acknowledged that it nevertheless had helped inspire ESS, then it would STILL not only be appropriate, but virtually required, for any high quality encyclopedia entry on the topic of ESS, to cover this fact of its origins. So Gaia could have been a completely dead idea, and a very poor one, and yet still be virtually de rigueur for this entry. You'll note that I included it in a section called "relationship to Gaia theory" or whatever it was.....thus, it relates to the history of ESS. The history of an idea is almost always part of its entry here at Wiki, just as is the life history of an outstanding individual. It's just basic Wiki protocol.

In many of its details, your material in the above is not correct, moreover: first, in terms of your sense of what Gaia theory states or does not state, you write, "the Gaia hypothesis goes (far) beyond these and requires that living systems act in a fashion that drives planetary-scale homeostasis." This is not at all a well informed statement, and is quite wrong! Yes, did the earliest presentations frame Gaia more or less like that? They did. But Gaia has been about homeorhetic self-regulation for some 20 years or more now. Nor do organisms "drive" that homeorhesis - it is an emergent property of the whole system, life and its physical-chemical surroundings taken together - that was the major theme of Lovelock, 1988. That's a quarter century ago now - should be enough time for folks to catch up, and of course, that's when Gaia really helped inspire ESS. The use of the term ESS started to pop up more within a half decade of that book's publication.

In terms of the rest of your history, you write, "Much of the core of ESS (e.g. energy balance, nutrient cycling, etc.) is much longer-standing than the Gaia hypothesis, and is instead simply the result of the extension, and melding, of fields such as geology and ecology." Obviously, Gaia theory/ESS is a synthesis of the work of a vast array of disciplines. That's of course why there's no such thing, really, as an ESS scientist, or a Gaia scientist, since most people ultimately are professionally involved in an expertise, which would be a subdiscipline of ESS. They don't talk about either ESS or Gaia in their papers or daily life. But whatever the "core" of ESS is, Gaia theory did it before ESS (nutrient cycling, etc.), and if ESS has any broad defining way that it looks at, say, nutrient cycling that is distinct from, say, how Alfred Redfield looked at nutrient cycling in the early 20th c., it was preceded by Lovelock's setting this new paradigm (and Redfield's work and nutrient cycling, of course, were important in the first 1979 Gaia book, obviously).

I'm not sure how much you know about the actual history here, but you write: "To be fair, Lovelock played a role in the recognition that planetary atmospheres will be altered by living systems." I mean, do you realize that at a time when the mainstream did not even consider methane a greenhouse gas, and certainly not a biogenic one, Lovelock and Margulis had already hypothesized an Archean methane greenhouse, and done quite a lot of work on the evolution of a hypothetical Archean atmosphere, assuming the biogenic nature of ALL major and trace components of the atmosphere outside the noble gases, as is now considered to be the case?

You write about the CMIP GCMs and Gaia theory? Lovelock was for several years saying that in the next Assessment report (after AR4), IPCC would include many of the kinds of feedbacks he was writing about into the big GCMs (and this expectation was mentioned, I believe, in either Revenge or Vanishing Face, but I'd have to check on it). Of course, it didn't happen, and it was one of the most compromising aspects of the AR5, actually - you don't have to look far to find outraged articles (Joe Romm, etc) about how the permafrost feedbacks, as one example, were left out of AR5's assembly of models. Of course the reasons for this were complex, and the subject for a different discussion......

Again, I can only repeat - this all seems to be highly motivated behavior from 3 different editors at Wiki, one of whom actually makes money in book sales from this behavior, removing material suggesting the fact that Gaia is more or less synonymous with ESS, since clearly this anti-Gaian stance looks quite weak in any such context, as ESS is simply the working model of science. All of this is absolutely against the protocol of Wiki editing. Gaia is simply part of the history of ESS, whether you like it or not, and thus needs to be included. And the relation between ESS and Gaia should primarily be discussed in two entries - that of ESS and that of Gaia. Thus, again, even if it were a now completely defunct, discarded idea, it would nevertheless be important to mention its place in the history of ESS. Further, once you stop trying to define Gaia in your own way using obsolete definitions, it really is the same as ESS (except, as Lovelock has said, calling it ESS is basically "boring").

That doesn't preclude, by the way, the existence of various levels of "philosophy" that might tend naturally to stem from Gaian science.......but, again, for the moment I am just sticking to the underlying mechanisms, what the idea states in terms of a mechanism, etc. This fact of their being the same is, of course, why Gaia is never mentioned in your computer search of the term in papers - the word used instead is ESS - and their being identical, in terms of the actual mechanism involved, is the essence of the quote from Schellnhuber, Caldeira, Lenton and others that I cited....

You folks can almost seem like the conservative Catholics who, outraged at the Pope's encyclical, and wanting to take the Pope down a peg or two, noted the role of Schellnhuber in the panel convened for the encyclical, and, finding that he had published work on Gaia, tried to make a scandal over this, by saying that this Pope doesn't really believe in God, but in Gaia! Oh my gosh! Holy balls of Gaia! Terradactyl (talk) 06:18, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * WP:TLDR - what you need is relevant WP:Reliable sources making the connection. Vsmith (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Occam's razor is well and cool, but one can only cut as much as possible without killing the beast.......your little comment makes no sense because you didn't take the time to read the foregoing, which discusses sources, etc. Given the complexity of this material, and your lack of time for dealing with the details of Plumbago's comments or my responses to them, you absolutely should not be editing the entry. Terradactyl (talk) 17:20, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Btw, even Plumbago does NOT say that there should be no section discussing the relation to Gaia theory. I make the case above why this is in fact necessary. If you have any case to make against inclusion of some kind of material describing that relationship, it is now contingent upon you to provide evidence from reliable sources against such a section. If you don't provide that very soon, a new version of what I included before, reflecting Plumbago's concerns, some of the things that Tyrrell wrote earlier, etc, will get inserted into the entry. What you say about "relevant, reliable sources making the connection" makes little sense - obviously Tyrrell himself discusses the connection at length at the very opening of his book. I cited him saying so, and you removed it, and now ask for "relevant reliable sources making the connection." Terradactyl (talk) 17:35, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have to weigh in here to disagree with Vsmith. I think the opposite--that is, that those saying there is little or no connection between Gaia Theory and Earth Systems Science need to provide some evidence for their case. Toby Tyrrell is not representative of ESS since his book, On Gaia, lacks system thinking, relying instead on the now discredited rules and assumptions of the so-called Modern Synthesis. His strongest argument against Gaia Theory he says is nitrogen starvation, but he reveals a profound ignorance of how nitrogen gets fixed so that it is useful to organisms. See my customer review of his book . He presents an anthropocentric argument that claims that if organisms die, that disproves Gaia--apparently because death is bad. Apparently he has not heard of natural selection, the elimination process that culls organisms that are unsupportable by the environment which is an emergent property of Gaia. Tyrrell is simply not an expert in Earth Systems Science or Gaia Theory. I have to agree with Terradactyl that any article about Earth Systems Science which would expunge the fact that the field developed out of Gaia Theory is academically and intellectually dishonest.  I would also point out that Gaia Theory is the only scientific explanation for the regulation seen in the Earth System for over 3200 million years. it is also endorsed in the New Symbiotic or Integrative Biology which has replaced neo-Darwinism.  The alternative which stretches credulity is that this regulation simply happened by accidents (of course this was the neo-Darwinists claim to explain novelty in evolution, random accidents, even though the odds of this made it an impossibility--see Denis Noble at 27 minutes into Part 1 of the Homage to Darwin debate .   In fact, it has now been demonstrated that there is very little evidence that changes in the genome are accidental (random in relation to function) .James D. MacAllister (talk) 21:39, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I can only repeat that even Plumbago did NOT say that there should be no section discussing Gaia theory here. There have been 3 inclusions of this Gaia material, and 3 removals, the first one by Toby Tyrrell himself, currently Gaia theory's harshest critic. Yet this is remarkable, in that Tyrrell himself openly discusses the Gaia/ESS connection at the opening of his book. Clearly then, the protocol of Wikipedia is being completely disregarded in this. Wiki is based around consensus, and the consensus is clear - both the harshest critic of Gaia, Tyrrell, and everyone on the other side of the Gaia debate, those who are involved with Gaia science, agree on this connection between Gaia theory and ESS, and that strongly suggests that the three attempts to expunge this connection from the article are quite inappropriate, and motivated by a certain bias, whether conscious or not.

Of course, that doesn't mean that Gaia theory and ESS are necessarily synonymous (although some people have clearly considered them so, as one of my citations clearly implied), and so I would think that those who have been removing the Gaia material from here would instead want to include their own properly cited material about the potential distinctions between ESS and Gaia, rather than inappropriately remove well-researched material that is historically accurate and properly cited about those connections.

I might add that, from this discussion thus far, Plumbago does seem like he is trying to simply make the article a better and more accurate article, as far as his knowledge of the Gaia material goes, but Vsmith's tiny comments and offhand reference to "needing reliable sources", essentially not taking part in the discussion at all, claiming that it is too long to read, yet removing the material, suggests to me that he should really be blocked from such removals in the future, and I will write to seek his being blocked from editing this article if he does this again.

I might also say now that I think that this same conversation really needs to be carried out at the Gaia entry as well - I had included a large number of edits there that were, among other things, designed to clarify the accurate historical connection with ESS, and it was all removed there as well.

I will, again, consider very carefully the comments of Plumbago here, as well as those of Tyrrell as well - I would like to include something reflecting what they both have emphasized most, chiefly, that people who see themselves as working in ESS do not necessarily talk or even think about Gaia theory at all. I think their point is actually important, although my interpretation of it is clearly different from theirs - Lovelock once jokingly referred to Gaia theory as the "science that dare not speak its name," or something to that effect, and it's in that context that I understand the phenomenon that they rightly point to.........Cheers, Terradactyl (talk) 23:43, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello again Terradactyl. Thanks for taking my comments above seriously. Yes, all that I am suggesting is that the article reflects what passes for ESS in the scientific community, both past and present. The Gaia hypothesis has a place here, but my argument would be that it is not as large as the previous round of modifications to the article would suggest. As mentioned before, while there are many ESS scientists who take Gaia seriously in their work, there are many more for whom it doesn't feature at all. This is reflected in the balance of scientific papers that I alluded to before (but inexhaustively - I only looked at 2014).


 * I'm still thinking about the best way of going forwards (to use dreadful management-speak), but I'm rather busy in RL at the moment and don't immediately have a fleshed-out plan. However, I would suggest a section on Gaia that presents its role in a balanced way will definitely feature (not least because Gaia presents probably the most integrated and inter-dependent vision of the Earth). Anyway more anon. --P LUMBAGO 16:51, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Preaching
The addition I re-removed here had the appearance of a promotional piece -- preaching the Gaia religion. Yes, that is a bit much. However, the Relationship to Gaia theory was overly promotional and presented as a debate rather than an encyclopedia article section. Yes, there are parallels, but the presentation of that section appeared as written by a true believer. There should be something about the parallels and likely influence - presented in a less true believer style. The Amsterdam Declaration section was just a pile of quotes and that doesn't fly as an encyclopedia article section. So apply your skill, use your references, and propose a rewrite here. Again: use non-promotional style and lose the long quotes. Vsmith (talk) 01:34, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Vsmith - I find it hard to know how to respond to this kind of thing. Above all, if you aren't familiar with a subject, please do not try to inject yourself into it! Are you not even familiar with the Amsterdam Declaration of 2001? And please, read a little more carefully, OK? There are certainly not "a pile of quotes" in that section, my dear fellow! That was all just ONE quote. The Declaration was made through 4 global research bodies under the aegis of the United Nations, with more than 1,000 scientists signing. It is comparable to an IPCC AR for climate science - a globally authoritative consensus document. Because of their great consensus authority, passages from IPCC documents DO get cited at length in various different Wiki entries. So, your talking about how "that doesn't fly" to have a "pile of quotes" is just embarrassing. That said, let me note that it was not me who put the whole long quote from the Declaration in there like that, actually. Someone else had done that, but then Toby Tyrrell, who actually spends much of a page (at least as formatted on my Kindle) discussing/citing the Declaration himself in his own book, removed it from here, saying it was "irrelevent" to this Wiki article. Yeah, right! Not too hard to see why he would say that!

When you speak so offensively about "true believer" and "Gaia religion", it is hard to know how to respond, and it is possibly not worthwhile discussing this with you. Do you not believe in science? The point - let me repeat for the nth time - of the final quote in my revisions, from some of the world's most famous climatologists, a quote which you just removed - was that the mechanisms in Gaia theory and ESS are identical. Further, historically, ESS grew out of Gaia theory. So calling this material "promotional" and so on is just really unacceptable...... Terradactyl (talk) 02:22, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry, my count was off on the Amsterdam Declaration section :) that was one long quote. A section in an encyclopedia article presents and discusses the content based on WP:RS. Simply to present a quote without discussion/comment won't work.
 * As to the rest, there is an over emphasis on quotes and names. Six paragraphs to say basically that ESS developed or grew from Lovelock's ideas and concepts... rather redundant and over-stating the obvious. We don't need to say nobel laureate or leading German climatologist, just link their names. The added puffery is not needed and adds to the promotional feel of the section. And yes, the Gaia religion and true believer bits above were a bit much ... sorry 'bout that. Vsmith (talk) 03:23, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me, Vsmith - But you wrote before: "what you need is relevant WP:Reliable sources making the connection" Vsmith (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

But then you call it "promotional" when it is noted that Schellnhuber is a "leading climatologist"? It is precisely because some people write about "preaching" and talk about "Gaia religion" that it has become so necessary to clarify, to give emphasis to the authoritative nature of what is being said here. Amazingly, you now say that what I am overstating is "obvious"? Before you were saying that I didn't offer any reliable sources.

Here is one which I will certainly put in both this entry and the Gaia theory one:

Dr. James Green, Director for Planetary Science, NASA, said in 2010 that -

"Dr. Lovelock and Dr. Margulis played a key role in the origins of what we now know as Earth System Science, and that is truly one of the most valuable achievements that NASA research has supported."

http://original.livestream.com/astrobiology50th/video?clipId=pla_89adff36-bad9-43a2-b416-29a41cb9fab1

audible at 04:07 Terradactyl (talk) 21:57, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment There could be a history section, which lists some of the developments, or declarations etc. prokaryotes (talk) 04:04, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Prokaryotes - yes, fully agreed with this! In fact, I was already thinking that I should rename the section, and call it something more like 'History and origins in Gaia hypothesis'. The Amsterdam Declaration could go in there as well, and of course it could be shortened - I agree that the quote was longer than was needed. Again, I did not put it in there.....I simply restored the quote from before, and added some intro text. I could, in accord with what Vsmith is saying, make it just the most important & relevant parts of the Declaration that is included, its opening. Terradactyl (talk) 21:57, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Good, please go ahead then. Thanks. prokaryotes (talk) 22:32, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Though, i suggest to add a section, Historic developments, and keep the Gaia aspects to the ecological system developments, if required extend the GH article since the scope here is the science field, not per se the entirety of evolution of system science, i guess. Best would be to have some sort of established text book mention in regards to the evolution to today's ESS. Thus, single quotes or links to live streams, you mention above are not enough - it requires RS, some of which are not from the original source, but with weight, like a journal review or often cited book. But maybe NASA has something in those regards, or PIK etc. Mention of each single program is to specific actually, but we could just link to their respective pages if needed.prokaryotes (talk) 04:09, 14 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, any history section should ideally reflect the evolution of ESS from multiple directions. Arguably, Gaia is a top-down theoretical approach to ESS, working from the largest spatial scales (i.e. the whole Earth) and proposing the highest level of organisation (i.e. everything is tied together). There is a long-standing (see here), bottom-up practical approach to ESS, building up model complexity from major components (e.g. like the atmosphere and ocean) to second order components (e.g. terrestrial and marine biogeochemistry, slow-changing ice sheets). The latter approach is that largely taken by organisations such as the Met Office when building Earth system models. It does not necessarily involve considering the Gaia hypothesis, but does not preclude the appearance of Gaian homeostasis as an emergent phenomenon within the models.


 * All that said, the article needs more than just a history section. Some sort of definition would be nice (probably textbook rather than from a small college). Maybe short sections on the main components (they're mentioned in the lead) of the ES headed up with links to the main articles on said components. Definitely something about modelling (and probably things like CMIP), since this is an important way of studying how the various ES components interact. I don't think that it's necessary to mention either journals (other science topics don't bother with this) or give careers advice on where ES can be studied, so this information can be removed from the current article. Ditto mention of specific research programs, since these are occurring across the world, although if there are articles for specific models, etc., they might help to illustrate ESS activity. I'm sure that I'm forgetting other sections that would be useful.


 * Now all we have to do is write it! ;-) Cheers, --P LUMBAGO 13:40, 14 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree, but the article has a definition already, one that is well written. prokaryotes (talk) 14:16, 14 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi prokaryotes - my issue wasn't with the definition, but with the source. For instance, there's a definition (admittedly long-winded) over here from the IGBP (which, incidentally, is an organisation that would naturally be mentioned in this article anyway). This would be a more obvious source for a definition than a small college. It could be trimmed down to something like this:


 * I'm sure other international organisations have similar - and possibly better - definitions that could be used. Such a source makes it clearer that ESS is a global research topic (and not just "global" because of its topic). --P LUMBAGO 07:47, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi, folks - I would actually say that the definition itself in the current version is not very good. Note that I also changed that in my version - clearly, there's a reason it's called 'system science', as it grew from systems theory, as I noted. It is not, strictly speaking, just scientists keeping close tabs on other disciplines across the Earth/life sciences, but rather those specific kinds of interactions involving feedbacks loops between large-scale systems. And of course, that is precisely why Jim Lovelock was so important to the origins of the field, as he was dealing with that before anyone else, and it means very little whether most scientists are aware of this history in their daily lives, frankly. Remember that C.P. Snow's "Scientific Revolution" was, as he explained, a 20th c. phenomenon in which industrial methods got applied to scientific practice, and so the average scientist since 1919 or so (the earliest date of it, according to Snow's essay) is something like a guy on the assembly line, doing his little bit, a cog in the big wheel of science. ESS is like a giant umbrella placed over a vast range of disciplines, impacting their interactions - in many cases the scientists taking part have little to do with it, really - for example, as Margulis noted in one of her essays, the NAS added, in the application processes for NAS funding to any project in the geosciences, a note that they were going to start giving priority to those projects that fit with "an ESS viewpoint", or something to that effect (I'd have to look it up for exact language).......

I might also say that, ironically, while the initial complaints about including Gaia theory's role in this ESS article focused on the fact that, in their daily lives, those considered "ESS scientists" do not necessarily think about or know much about Gaia theory, there was not one word in the entry, nor is there any now, about what in their daily lives they in fact do!! Only in my version was there a bit saying that there is a tendency for ESS centers to focus on climate science: this is in fact the case - I didn't take the trouble to say explicitly that U. of Penn's ESS center, whose mission I cited, was probably one of the first centers exclusively for ESS research, and was built entirely around climate, as I cited......

Terradactyl (talk) 20:58, 14 August 2015 (UTC)


 * It is very easy actually. Thus, if you have a definition with passes reliability and is about ESS, add it. Also i ask you to stay brief and substantive, see WP:FORUM.prokaryotes (talk) 21:03, 14 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I'd agree Terradactyl - some indication of the sort of research that goes on (observation, experiments, modelling, theoretical) is important. Most scientists engaged in ESS do not work at the conceptual level that science gods like Lovelock and Margulis do, or did. That's also why I mentioned the research literature before - that's probably the most straightforward way to get a handle on what ESS research takes place, and the number of papers on particular topics gives a crude idea of how important they are to the topic. --P LUMBAGO 07:47, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Definition
The question is if we use a single definition, such as from IGBP, as suggested above or a few more. In my opinion there is room for a few definitions if required, but we could stick to the most authoritative body as well. However, if we quote something it should contain the full part. Stanford, NASA, they all have their own definition about ESS. prokaryotes (talk) 11:10, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, Prokaryotes - You mentioned citing a textbook, which is not a bad idea. The primary one, I believe, is the Kump, Kasting & Crane one called the Earth System. I've just ordered myself a copy of it, so might wait to receive it before proceeding with this.... Cheers, Terradactyl (talk) 14:05, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I hope it is not 20 years old :D prokaryotes (talk) 15:28, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Just came across this page Earth System Science Partnership, which might be relevant in this discussion. prokaryotes (talk) 18:37, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi, all -

OK, after a couple of weeks away from this material, I am ready to work on this article and the Gaia theory one. I was amazed, in following Prokaryotes' advice to look at ESS textbooks first, at just how wrong-headed much of this discussion has been, and how accurate what I was suggesting earlier was.

I hope that you won't mind if I begin my process by reverting to my earlier version - I generally don't like reversions, because I think the Wiki process should be additive more than subtractive, but since the article has gotten more and more about what is being excluded, not what is included, I don't see that as a problem in this case. If anyone wants to add more to what I do, that's great. I wonder at those comments, by the way, that I should keep it very short - there are huge Wiki articles on extremely limited topics, and ESS is one of the hugest, most sprawling undertakings in the history of science, so the idea that everything I put in before was "too long" seems absurd. Anyhow, don't be surprised to see it as I had it before, and I will work from there on making new changes to that.... Terradactyl (talk) 20:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What reference/revision do you mean exactly? Also your claim that you read a book and now you know everything better is just your opinion. The current version seems to be good. prokaryotes (talk) 20:55, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok i just reverted you, that was a bad version, header to big, to much weight on Gaia, you removed a lot of infos. What exactly do you deem missing, which is part of the book you read? And what book did you read, name and author?prokaryotes (talk) 20:59, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you can add a section on Relationship to Gaia theory and extend definition section if required, including the Amsterdam Declaration, that seems to cover your changes.prokaryotes (talk) 21:05, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Prokaryotes - You yourself suggested that i make reference to textbooks, and I now have 3 of them. All accord with what I had been doing earlier with the entry. Btw, your just reverted it on me, but then wrote that I could should add a section on relationship to Gaia theory. That's indeed the primary thing that had been subtracted earlier, and then added back in by me. I ASK YOU TO ADD MATERIAL THAT YOU FEEL IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT SUBTRACT WELL SOURCED FACTUAL MATERIAL BY OTHERS SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU DO NOT LIKE IT!

Btw, if you feel I removed anything important, whether by you or others, from the most recent versions, we can, of course, add that back in.....I didn't see much of anything new added since all of my work was deleted, however. Like I said, I was going back to that version as a starting point to to re-introducing, for the 3rd time, the Gaia material into this ESS entry. Terradactyl (talk) 21:35, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Btw, Prokaryotes - you wrote "no consensus per talk, please discuss" but there had been very lengthy discussion a couple of weeks ago, and there WAS consensus that it was appropriate to include discussion of relationship to Gaia in this article. For example, Plumbago agreed to this, as did several others. Thus I mentioned I was going to redo that again, and there was a very large amount of discussion about this, just look at this earlier material in this talk page. I have studied the past history of ESS further since then - there's the book-length NASA ESSC/Advisory Council's Earth system science: A Closer Look, from 1988, and then there are the many textbooks, etc....... Cheers, Terradactyl (talk) 21:43, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Another thing - I was in the middle of working from the prior version, and putting in the references to the books I was alluding to, in answer to your question about what books I had in mind, etc, when your reversion made me lose work! I wrote ahead of time that I would revert, but that I then would be changing away from that version - so why did you do that? Again, Wiki should be more of an additive process.....Terradactyl (talk) 21:48, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Prokaryotes - I notice, btw, your being reported for edit warring at the noticeboard, and really hope that you will refrain from this kind of thing here! At the least, let me make the changes, and then comment on what you dislike! Terradactyl (talk) 22:03, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You removed a lot of good content, removed the structure of the article, everything about programs. The section Controversy concerning Earth system science and its relationship to Gaia theory is suspect, especially this For example, one of the primary critics of Gaia theory today, Toby Tyrrell, personally removed all mention of Gaia theory from this Wikipedia article (Seriously? How is that notable? Will you add my name when i revert again?), Earth system science university curricula and Gaia theory, strange title. Amsterdam Declaration is to long. Scientific journals irrelevant. Basically you seem to write this article about Toby Tyrrell, Lovelock and Margulis. You also leave out all the science previous to Gaia theory when writing about history. To much Gaia theory, previous article version was much better. prokaryotes (talk) 05:37, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This part from the lede Growing from systems theory, systems science often concerns self-regulating systems in particular, i.e. systems that can self-correct through feedback mechanisms, and Earth system science above all applies such feedback mechanisms to these large-scale spheres of the planet and to the subsystems through which they operate. -- What does this mean they can self-correct? From where is this, there is no reference. Maybe what you perceive as self correcting is just the sum of interconnected thresholds.
 * Most of the stuff belongs at Gaia hypothesis, including, Toby Tyrrell: On Gaia reflects on the scientific evidence indicating that life and environment mutually affect each other, and proposes that feedbacks on Earth do not provide robust protection against the environment becoming uninhabitable--or against poor stewardship by us. http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9959.html prokaryotes (talk) 05:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Terradactyl: rolled back all of the Gaia material. You simply cannot post material like that in an article. Airing your personal grievances in an article on a topic of public interest is just ridiculous. You'll note, however, that I have retained other, more constructive edits that you made. But before you edit again - think. --P LUMBAGO 07:39, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Further to the above, the new text that remains will need to be drastically edited too. For instance, I had no idea that we owe Earth System Science solely to Good Works in the 1960s of Our Saviour Lovelock. Who knew? Here was me thinking that it was a natural extension of work in geology and ecology that's been going on for a couple of centuries. --P LUMBAGO 07:58, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me, Plumbago & Prokaryotes - Clearly, the personal grievances aren't mine. You even admitted yourself, after a good deal of discussion, that material about Gaia, yes, belongs in this article, look above. And clearly, there IS real controversy about this issue, what with Tyrrell personally removing the material. Nothing factual is on your side - I am now simply adding the whole textbook literature to what I had before in the article, based on Prokaryote's suggestion to me to cite textbooks.

& Btw, I do state that the field includes the whole history of many fields. About its own discrete history, however, obviously, yes, Lovelock is of primary importance, just like Darwin is to Darwinism, which is why we use his name continuously. Feel free to add your bit about why you think this isn't right because current "ESS scientists" don't actively think about Lovelock's work, etc..... Just don't subtract well cited material that is obviously both necessary and primary to this article. Terradactyl (talk) 13:49, 7 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Regardless of Gaia content, no article should refer to itself in the way that your changes have. Wikipedia uses reliable sources and not itself. So I'm going to roll back the portions that refer to Tyrrell again. I will leave the rest of the Gaia content for now, though it will require editing as it is not reflective of the topic, and does a disservice to readers. I seem to have done a very bad job of making clear to you that Gaia is not a central part of mainstream ESS, but absences are more difficult to demonstrate than presences. I will try again later. --P LUMBAGO 14:18, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

OK, Plumbago - Actually, that is fair about Tyrrell. My only reason for stating his act of removal, which is unusual, is because it is likewise unusual, and a very strong COI, for a leading "scholar" of a field (as Tyrrell presents himself) to tinker with factual information he doesn't like in a Wiki entry. Btw - the fact that Tyrrell himself noted that the Amsterdam Declaration was like a quote from Lovelock SHOULD remain in there, that's totally fair, and I haven't checked yet to see if you removed it.....

For the rest, I am happy for you to add material about the daily life of people who see themselves as being in ESS not caring, knowing or thinking about things such as "Gaia." Indeed, such a thing should probably be in there. But it negates nothing of what is stated there currently. A current "Darwinist" thinks not at all about the specific material that preoccupied Darwin, and Darwin would barely recognize the material done today in his name.....

The fact is, in one of the textbooks I cite, the ONLY person mentioned in chapter 1 relevant to founding the field (i.e., there's mention of Keeling curve & Alvarez for the K-T boundary) is Lovelock.....and Chapter 2 is called "Daisyworld." So if "central" means what takes place in daily life of most scientists, no, Gaia is not "central" to most ESS work - but Gaia IS "foundational" to the whole field, as I believe I have amply demonstrated at this point........Terradactyl (talk) 15:52, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

At this point, the very people who have in the past removed all material on Gaia from this article finally came to agree that something on Gaia needs to be included in the article. Anyone trying to remove it all really needs to discuss it and have some pretty involved factual basis, or it should simply be reverted without discussion at this point - this has been talked about for months. Terradactyl (talk) 14:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, Terradactyl, something, but not what you've persistently been adding that over-inflates the role of the Gaia hypothesis in ESS. And we have yet to reach anything approaching a consensus on this page yet, so it's a good thing if other, hithero uninvolved editors can help us get there. --P LUMBAGO 08:05, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Terradactyl keeps editing against consensus, his edits are also lacking proper cites, and sometimes references. Terradactyl, read WP:CIR and WP:OR. prokaryotes (talk) 08:51, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Yikes. This stuff is pretty outrageous! First, let's put it this way - I'm not on Wikipedia to spend my life editing huge numbers of topics. I'm only on here to edit a few entries I care about. My general policy is to try to never destroy other people's work, but to make well-cited ADDITIONS to a few entries that can make them better. Getting an edit warring warning from Prokaryotes is amazing, given the obvious here: if you look at Isambard Kingdom's "contributions" to the article, they were almost all just SUBTRACTIONS. Prokaryotes himself added back some old material, but note that I had never removed it, although I didn't think it was particularly distinguished material. So, the only person with a lot of actual work destroyed on this is me. Prokaryotes says that it is not well cited? That I should read 'competence is required'?

Prokaryotes - what I see is that you received the following:

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for block evasion. You cannot simply make multiple accounts and start editing   another one when one is blocked. Wait for the block to expire on your User:Prokaryotes account. If you prefer to use this account and not the Prokaryotes account, then the Prokaryotes account will need to be indefinitely blocked. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the following text below this notice.

I would suggest that all of you change your philosophy a bit: if you have material that you wish to add to the ESS entry, have at it, please! Thus far none of you in the present discussion have added much of anything, frankly. Not one of you has put in any great information, shaped the article further, etc. Rather, you have only tried to SUBTRACT material that you "don't like" - Isambard Kingdom called it "all this Gaia stuff"........yeah, right, that "Gaia stuff" happened to be from Chapter 1 of an Earth System Science textbook! Talk about competence! And it was Prokaryotes who had first suggested that I get further citations from "a textbook".....how many textbooks on Earth System Science has Prokaryotes looked at? And what is not well-cited in what I have added to the entry?

In terms of the notion of who is 'building consensus' or is not doing so, note that Isambard Kingdom made no discussion at all for his reverting huge amounts of my material, and yet this didn't bother Prokaryotes at all. Note that I more or less started this Talk Page for this entry - there was just a little note that something had gotten moved from or to the Gaia page, I think, when I started the real discussion about this entry.......

Terradactyl (talk) 04:58, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I have now requested protection of this article from semi-vandalizing removal of obviously significant and unquestionably accurate and well-cited material, concerning the relationship of ESS to Gaia theory - whether by Toby Tyrrell or by others, like Isambard Kingdom, Prokaryotes and other edit-warring types. Terradactyl (talk) 17:11, 16 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Terradactyl, I'm sorry, but it is a misrepresentation to claim that the article is being vandalized. In fact, in my own recent edits I've put a mention of Gaia into the lead paragraph (where it wasn't previously even mentioned). I've also left an entire paragraph about the history of ESS and Gaia. Have a look at this version prior to your recent edits: . One thing that I think needs to be recognized: ESS is larger than Gaia, incorporating ideas that come from other Earth science fields (especially physical geography), and including ideas from nonlinear dynamics (outside of Earth science). For this reason, it is inappropriate to equate ESS with Gaia, as you seem to want to do (and as others sometimes mistakenly do). But, again, you need to recognize that Gaia is being accommodated in my edits. You would help yourself by not presenting us with such large walls of words. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 06:00, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Isambard - Thanks for taking part in the discussion. Yes, it is indeed a misrepresentation to call anything vandalism when you are taking part in, and responsive to, the discussions at the talk page: but, for example, when you earlier removed the material citing university ESS textbooks, saying it wasn't appropriate, please note - it wasn't even my idea to have that initially: Prokaryotes said something like, roughly, "If you're going to say that, I would want to see a citation from something like a textbook...." So, I went to the trouble of getting my hands on copies of a few of the main ones, and then did what Prokaryotes said. Given that this took time, money, etc, it seems at least 1/2 way to vandalism to come along, seemingly unaware of all this, and with a one sentence summary statement remove it all. It is well-cited material and highly pertinent.

Now, in terms of your requests for clarification in the "origins" section: please reread the sentence about the NASA ESSC reports - I wasn't saying that they mentioned Gaia at all! They don't. I just said that they were a landmark in the development of ESS - and I provided a citation from a PNAS paper (Mooney et al) in which they were referred to as just that, a "landmark." So, I don't feel that needs more clarification. In terms of the last sentence of the paragraph - really every major early document, the early NASA reports, the first textbooks, etc, all discuss increasing human impacts, climate change, etc, as the major force behind the integrative approach of ESS, so I think that doesn't really need more to support it - after all, what is there even remotely as significant for ESS back in the 1980s as those NASA reports, which I had just cited in the prior sentence, so I am just being polite in saying "like these early reports" when really there is nothing else comparable to them, especially the 2nd one.....

(Of course, the fact that the report doesn't make attribution to Lovelock doesn't mean that there wasn't influence, of course. That was 9 years after the Lovelock 1979 book, which created a lot of discussion. The ESS NASA committee started 4 years after that book. Nowadays, very few except some old school Neo-Darwinists try to expunge the obviously needed attribution, and it is fine for Jim Green to say publicly, as a high level NASA administrator, that Lovelock "played a key role" in the founding of the field. But back when those reports were written, there was no desire to cite Lovelock, just as some want to avoid mention of that today, for a host of reasons which are simply not in the service of the truth)



I disagree, respectfully, in your saying that "ESS is bigger than Gaia," depending on how you mean that: if you mean that ESS is "bigger" because it is MORE integrative of many different fields, I'd say no, or at least "not really." Both are really "integrative umbrellas" for a vast range of disciplines. The huge range of Earth and life sciences were already around much earlier, of course, so "ESS" means little outside the specific way that these fields are seen to interrelate through systems science. It is precisely that specific way that came directly from Gaia theory. And when you mention 'non-linear dynamics,' that was of course part of Gaia early on. The Lovelock '87 book (Ages of Gaia) begins with much discussion of Jantsch, of Prigogene's "dissipative structures," etc., even as it bemoans the academic apartheid that prevented proper integration of the many relevant fields involved putting all the life and Earth sciences together. The one thing I would grant you is that, in common usage, Gaia theory is more like the creative essence of ESS, and ESS connotes the vast range of data generated by that new essence. But I would distinguish between ideas and data: you say that ESS takes in more "ideas" from other sciences. Like what ideas? I'd say that ESS, in truth, gets used pretty loosely to connote all contemporary Earth science research by some. Certainly there are mountains of data generated in ES, so if all that were owned by "ESS", then ESS is vastly "bigger" than Gaia.

Anyhow, if you want to say that some form of ESS would have come about anyway if Lovelock had died at 45 and there never were any Gaia theory, just as evolutionary theory would have evolved if Darwin had died of a stroke at 30, sure, I'd agree with that. But neither of those things happened, and so this is partly just about getting some accurate attribution. Terradactyl (talk) 00:57, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Btw, I'd also note that some have argued - and the Lovelock quote comparing Gaia to ESS seems to go along with this - that Gaia could be seen to be "bigger" than ESS simply because it also has given rise to things that, like Vernadsky's "noosphere", can't really be said to be the province of science. Indeed, that has been part of the problem for Gaia theory all along - since "big Gaia" tends to drift ineluctably to philosophical speculation, some never thought it was really science. Of course, that isn't correct, but it has also led to some very interesting things that aren't science. Terradactyl (talk) 01:20, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Terradactyl, you keep using the talk page like a forum (WP:FORUM), and you seem to be the only one who came to this page with a strong POV. The consensus is against most of your edits. Also posting out of context stuff doesn't belong here. If you feel that all other editors here are wrong, or whatever you think is not in order, go report me or others at ANI or Edit warring board. Someone will surely report you if you keep editing against consensus.prokaryotes (talk) 13:48, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Relationship with Gaia theory
Hello, I am a late comer in this discussion but I am somewhat literate in the subject. My impression is that the section "Origins of Earth system science" now accurately reflects the origin of ESS by acknowledging its foundations in the Gaia hypothesis. Where I see a hornet's nest with fuel to last is the section entitled "Relationship to Gaia theory". The POV, assessments and editorials shown there are simply not needed in Wikipedia; the statement has already been made in the section "Origins of Earth system science" that the Gaia theory was used for its foundation. The Gaia concept also evolved with time to conform 100% with the scientific terminology, so comparing them in parallel is a pissing match —evidenced in the talk page— not likely to stop any time soon. I strongly suggest to delete that section -while being aware of the hard work it took to reference those arguments. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 04:28, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * BI, I agree. I propose to save the citations to source material, but otherwise remove the section Relationship to Gaia theory. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 05:54, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Removed! prokaryotes (talk) 06:51, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, BatteryIncluded - Well, I certainly wasn't the first person to put material about Gaia into the entry. Note that for a year or two the entry had a section called "Inspiration in the Gaia Hypothesis" or something like that. It was then removed by Toby Tyrrell, of all people, with a note calling it irrelevant! Note above Prokaryote's talk about my recent edits adding back in material about the relationship with Gaia theory, as being "against consensus," which is pure rubbish. Indeed, it is because of folks like himself, who have rendered the obvious into something to be considered "controversial," that the entry demands a longer section to substantiate the facts in this "controversy." Keep in mind that if you look above you will note that Prokaryotes himself wrote that I should find citations from "academic textbooks" verifying the origins of ESS in Gaia theory, the importance of Gaia to ESS, etc, if I was to include this material. That's exactly what I did in the section "Relationship to Gaia theory," and now that I went through the work, and given that the material is obviously accurate and clearly pertinent, I have asked for protection of the article, and will keep asking for it if editors keep removing good work of another editor instead of adding their own material that expresses some "other side" of this "controversy", if they feel that there are some points missing that need to be in there. Terradactyl (talk) 20:17, 20 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello. It is unfortunate that the name "Gaia" drew the New Age crowd into the scientific discussions, because their context was quite different and that interfered with the scientific studies under that name. Had Lovelock named it something like "geophysiology", it would have been a different story. Regarding this WP article, Gaia must/can figure as a prominent "precursor" of sorts in the historical context, as it is an article on ESS, not on Gaia or on the ESS-Gaia comparison.  Please feel free to review my edits keeping in mind there is an urgency to address the neutrality tag on top, and aim at removing it. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 16:18, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, BatteryIncluded -

Well, at the moment, it seems to be more the rabid dying elements of hard-core Neo-Darwinists that are the problem, not New Age folks. Please note: the 'Origins section', as I created it, dealt only very briefly with Gaia theory, and then discussed, and focused on, the history of the first steps of ESS as its own independent thing, as opposed to Gaia theory. That's why the "Relationship" section is so vital - it isn't just a question of origins, it's more complicated than that, and the "origins" I meant were primarily those of ESS after its "Inspiration in the Gaia theory," to quote from a section heading title of another editor. To the extent that Gaia and ESS overlap or are even the same thing in essence today, it is extremely important to this article, if it is to have any intellectual honesty about it, that it discuss that fact, for reasons that remain obvious. That's why a section like the "relationship" one is clearly needed - and the sheer fact that Tyrrell removed all mention of Gaia from this article himself shows how important this is!

In terms of the neutrality tag: I initially thought that it came up because of my complaints to the administrators, when I asked for protection. Then, still not knowing how NPOV disputes work, I began to wonder if it came from the other side, and one of these Neo-Darwinists like Toby Tyrrell making a complaint. Actually it was editor AnomieBot who added it. Please note what the neutrality tag asks for: as always at Wiki, it is NOT the destruction of good, well-cited, objective factual work that is pertinent, but the addition of OTHER material, if there is something being left out that renders the point of view unbalanced. It says:

Please improve the article by ADDING information on neglected viewpoints

I hope so much that if Prokaryotes keeps removing the Gaia material, which I worked on for a long time, even following some of his specific demands in executing it, and which is entirely relevant and important to this article, that you will revert his attacks upon the article! I will again try to get protection for the article. As mentioned, this material has been removed at least 6 times or so now, by a few aggressive editors, although I was not the first to include either a section on Gaia or the Amsterdam Declaration. What's most fascinating is that no one else bothered to trace the actual history of ESS, outside of the relationship to Gaia theory - I seem to be the only editor who has bothered to deal with that, curiously enough, almost as though these complaining editors don't actually care much about ESS, only about their dislike for "Gaia." In my opinion, someone like Prokaryotes is essentially incompetetent: he seems to have little concern with what is actually in the article, he only cares about what ISN'T in the article, and that has nothing to do with the Wiki philosophy. Prokaryotes has not only been blocked in the past, but he has also tried to evade his blocks with secondary accounts. This kind of aggressive destructive editing is a nuisance. So, please feel free to revert his subtractions (note above all that he never seems to add much of anything to it - try to find which material he initiated in the article - but is happy to subtract huge blocks of text by others), as they are primarily pernicious. Cheers, Terradactyl (talk) 01:21, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, BatteryIncluded - Btw, just to expand on the lack of appropriateness of what Prokaryotes et al are trying to do......this is what Wiki says:

'''It is inappropriate to remove blocks of well-referenced information which is germane to the subject from articles on the grounds that the information advances a point of view. Wikipedia's NPOV policy contemplates inclusion of all significant points of view. [5]'''

If they have some other point of view, they should feel free to express it! In fact, I'm not sure that there really is some "other side" here.

cheers Terradactyl (talk) 02:44, 22 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I see that the edit warring is intense, and so I will only make one additional observation: I think that the sources used by you, Terradactyl are correct and appropriate (undeniable that Gaia was key and seminal to ESS), but there is something to be said about your writing style that prompted me to want to delete that section. I see that there has been a long and frustrating edit war against user Toby Tyrrell who seemed inclined to 'supress' Gaia theory altogether, so Terradactyl countered with his referenced arguments in the body of the article. The outcome is that that section was created and written in the style of a debate rather than an encyclopedic summary. I propose: 1) that section to be shortened and re-written with an encyclopedic style. 2) Move the historical info into the "Origins" section, and 3) focus the comparison with what Gaia theory is today. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 23:42, 22 September 2015 (UTC)


 * If I can return to stick my oar in again. The original reverts by Toby Tyrrell (and, subsequently, myself) were to address an overemphasis on Gaia's current role in ESS. Gaia is of secondary importance in contemporary ESS research, and this is something I tried to illustrate above by looking on the Web of Science. That said, Gaia is certainly part of the history of ESS, and this should be represented here. However, it is also the case that much of contemporary ES modelling (the best example of systems science in a planetary context?) is borne out of extensions of long-standing weather and climate modelling that has gradually incorporated more and more aspects of the Earth system (e.g. the ocean, the terrestrial biota, marine biogeochemistry, the cryosphere, etc.). Gaia has, at best, only partially informed such work, and this is reflected in the relative lack of attention that Gaia receives in the scientific literature. It does still have its champions, and a number of them are prominent scientists, but it is not a hot mainstream topic, and its contribution to the history of ESS is not unequivocal. My issue here has been with Terradactyl's efforts to consistently overplay Gaia in ESS, not to expunge it. --P LUMBAGO 08:54, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree in that this article is about ESS, so ESS has to be the only prominent subject. Gaia is noted as seminal or key. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 14:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I will actually do what BatteryIncluded suggests, but should probably just hit revert again. What Plumbago writes - and has been repeating for a long time - simply does not add up. He's saying that Gaia theory had a role in the past, but not the present, because no one "in ESS" (whatever that means) talks about Gaia. But he is wanting to keep out of the article the observation - made many times by others, including Lovelock himself, outside of the single citation I gave -  that people do not talk about "Gaia" and use the term "ESS" instead simply to avoid the name "Gaia". That clearly changes things! And so the question here is, aside from dealing with the origins of the field, the actual contemporary relationship between ESS & Gaia, which, given the high profile of some of those who have said that they are identical, or nearly so, obviously is 100% required for any reasonably honest discussion about ESS!! Obviously, the reason that Tyrrell's expunging Gaia from this is not at all as Plumbago describes, and is tantamount to a crime within any reasonable world of scholarship, is that he makes money and a career and his reputation from the separation of these two things - as soon as one observes that these things, Gaia and ESS, are more or less identical, then his Gaia book isn't worth a dime! That you are openly supporting this kind of criminality is amazing.

There is no question but that I have been the most objective editor of this entry - in terms of all the "NPOV" garbage, note that no one else editing this article ever put in any significant material ASIDE from Gaia: there was no mention of ESS and climate, the education section didn't even mention where you could study it, there was no real definition, no mention of NASA's role in formalizing the field, their committee, etc. - nada! I mean, you've got be kidding. Do you care about ESS at all or what? Calling what is standard what is "neutral" in this case would be like considering "standard" discussion of Jews in Germany in the 30s "neutral": the bias is oozing out of all your pores. What Plumbago's trying to say in his rationale translates into this - because the standard practice is bullshit, standard practice is what should be left as "neutral objective truth," and anyone trying to change this is biased. I am trying to be neutral, but describing Sally Hemings and Jefferson in a way that is "neutral" demands pissing off a lot of people, who of course are going to say that it is "biased" and "out of context", etc......

I've been fascinated with this Gaia/ESS relationship and done my research. You simply have not done the research, it would seem, to offer any alternative authoritative material to what I have included. Therefore Wiki is actually not in favor of what you are doing here at all. According to Wiki's rules, you can balance imbalances you perceive if you have appropriate but neglected material to add. You aren't supposed to be removing mine, and you obviously see that it is pertinent and authoritative.

Btw, Plumbago - a little question? All this talk about "ESS researchers." That sounds good, but like, isn't science done by scientists? So, then, who are they? I mean, could you tell me this: who is the most famous "Earth system scientist"? I mean, I could give you my own answer, but I want yours! I'd say, personally, OK, Ken Caldeira - after all, Ken is famous, has been on the faculty of one of the most elite ESS Depts. for a long time (and became a Dir. of Stanford's Carnegie Global Ecology center), he's cited in the major media a lot, coined the term "ocean acidifcation," etc. Agreed, he's probably the most famous "ESS scientist," right? So, where's the Gaia? The one time I had lunch with Ken, he told me he had just gotten together with "Jim and Sandy" the week before, Lovelock was telling him this and that about what he was up to, etc. They are close, Ken's grad thesis was on CLAW and putting it together with the Hamilton equation, etc. So, like the rest of the story and your perverse logic, Gaia and Lovelock is totally fundamental to Ken's whole career and even his personal life, but is not discussed. But, says Plumbago in his circular logic, since it isn't discussed, it isn't important, and it is "biased" to discuss it.

OK, so who are 10 "ESS scientists"?? By that I mean, people who would say to me, "Hi, I am an ESS researcher." I'll bet you can't name 5! And if you can't name 5, you should hide your head in shame like a VW exec......

Terradactyl (talk) 02:07, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Terradactyl – please read what people say and don't just write more and more stuff (less is more, etc.). My point has been from the start, and continues to be now, that an article on Earth system science should primarily reflect what it is that Earth system scientists, including prominent ones like Ken Caldeira, write in scientific journals. That way readers get an understanding of what these scientists think are important facts and concepts in understanding ESS. Agreeing with me so far? Good. As such, if a topic (like Gaia) gets short shrift in said scientific journals (and it does), that indicates that it is not a key central concept in ESS so should not dominate an article on ESS (which has been the nature of your edits since this kicked-off). Of course, the history of how ESS came to be what it is today is, naturally, also important, as are topics like Gaia which exist at the margins of active research, so they should appear in the article, but be contextualised as such. I don't think anyone disputes this - do they?


 * On the topic of ES scientists, whether Ken Caldeira is close personal friends with "Jim and Sandy" is secondary (for our purposes here at ESS; the article on Ken might be a good place for this) as to whether he talks about Gaia in his scientific output. Of which, I've checked on Web of Science and he does. He talked about Gaia in a paper (actually a book chapter; it's on my shelf) from 1991. Since then – judging, admittedly, only from paper titles, abstracts and keywords – he does not appear to think it merits further discussion. I can well imagine that he is interested and engaged with Gaia (I don't know him at all well), but it would not appear to be so much that he writes lots of papers on the topic (or any). As it happens, his 1991 paper concludes ambivalently on Gaian feedbacks, although it makes the general case that "accidental" feedbacks like DMS (whose star has faded in recent years) might be expected to persist (a point I'd heartily agree with). Anyhow, we should not be focusing on individual scientists here, but conveying to readers who want to know about ESS what it is that the scientists studying it actually write about. That is all. And if that happens to be Gaia, there should be no difficulty finding plenty of recent scientific papers to this effect.


 * Finally, and in passing, one objection that could reasonably be mounted to my characterisation of ESS is that Gaia is so accepted within it that it no longer needs discussion, or even mention by name, and is de facto ESS. However, this interpretation is belied by the fact that Gaia genuinely does rumble along in the scientific literature as a minority topic in ESS, occasionally getting attention as mechanisms are proposed and / or shot down. This, also, is limp support for it one day becoming accepted science (which, I've suggested elsewhere, might stem from space telescopes and climate models). But we're not there yet. --P LUMBAGO 11:12, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment It also makes sense to look at the article on Gaia hypothesis, which mentions ESS two times, at least in 1 case based on a primary source. For this article we should add something along the lines of the Precedents section. prokaryotes (talk) 13:05, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I have gotten the article protected for a couple of days. I don't think your argument, Prokaryotes, for expunging the well referenced material on the relationship between Gaia and ESS makes much sense: clearly, if ESS = Gaia, and the ESS name is the stand-in for Gaia, then your judging Gaia's importance to Ken Caldeira (or to the whole ESS field), by its number of mentions in "paper titles, abstracts and keywords" is not useful. In fact, Ken Caldeira was a lead author of the chapter I quoted from the Schellnhuber book, a quote which says that in the dispute about Gaia, it is really just about an approach to language, and that the underlying mechanisms are the same in both ESS and Gaia.

The continuous removal of such obviously germane material to the topic of ESS is absurd and exposes a deep bias held by several current editors of this article. Terradactyl (talk) 04:03, 28 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Terradactyl: The protection log is here. Note that the several editors you are accusing of bias, I guess against Gaia, are, in fact, supporting a reasonable representation of Gaia in the article. What we need to see within the article is a balance of material. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 06:02, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Isambard Kingdom - Well, there seems to be no balance at all among any of the current editors, except me, in dealing with the relationship between Gaia and Earth system science. That is because you apparently do not want it to be discussed at all except to say that Gaia played a role in the "origins" of ESS. I see it as essential to discuss the relationship between these things, with the full range of viewpoints on this interrelationship being discussed. The current version of mine in fact already covers a wide range of viewpoints - from Sir Crispin Tickell, saying that they are basically synonymous, to those seeing them as distinct but still overlapping. Perhaps there are yet other ones I did not list that could be authoritatively cited, I don't know, but I have been asking all of you to include more. Multiple points of view are fine.

But the great irony here, with all this "NPOV" stuff, is that I do not even have a definite viewpoint on how best to characterize this interrelationship myself, and might say that, personally, it seems to me that in some contexts people are talking about the same things - as Ken Caldeira, etc, said, where the "underlying mechanisms are the same" - but in other cases they are not.

What seems most clear to me is that Toby Tyrrell was utterly wrong when he wrote that Gaia was "irrelevent" to ESS, and removed material that had been in this article since 2011, not long after the article was begun by Andrew Lockley. That was nonsense, and nothing could be more germane to this entry because, as I wrote to one of the administrators:

"Now, if you have some very famous people saying 'X and Y are the same thing,' and other famous people saying, 'Well, X and Y are NOT the same thing, but interrelated,' is it not clear that it is germane to subject X (and to subject Y!) that this interrelationship be discussed in its article, with a full range of views of what that relationship may or may not be, as expressed through well-referenced sources?"

None of the arguments given thus far against having a section on the relationship between these things - given that such prominent people have expressed themselves so variously about it - holds any water for me at all. The arguments of Prokaryotes and Plumbago about reflecting the "daily lives" of "ESS researchers" and so on seems like pure hocus-pocus. Note that, when I asked for it, no one could even draw up a list of famous "ESS researchers." Meanwhile, Jim Green, who I quoted in a sentence suggesting that ESS and Gaia are one and the same thing, was quoted just today in media outlets throughout the world, about water on Mars - Mars seems to hold more water than these arguments you are all pushing for expunging such well-researched material.

Terradactyl (talk) 04:25, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As i pointed out above, the science goes back much further (to the greek philosophers). It's not just gaia theory suddenly emerged in the 60s story, when we write on ESS. And today we can see the result of ESS in various forms and branches of the sciences. Animations from NASA, or take NOAA's Science on a Sphere help to understand all these systems better, or take the IPCC report which assembles major works. Once you have studies which combine our planetary systems, you have earth system science. prokaryotes (talk) 04:47, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

The obvious fact that both ESS and Gaia are preceded by the whole history of science (and I was the only one who added anything about this in the article, btw) is clearly meaningless for this dispute. You are NOT responding to what I just wrote, in saying this. The issue for you is to provide any justification at all - if many prominent people, including one just quoted everywhere yesterday in worldwide media, speak in a way that fully equates these two things, ESS and Gaia - for barring from the article a reasoned and balanced discussion of the relationship between them. Expressing the full range of well-sourced opinions about how these things interrelate. It's an absolute no brainer. Terradactyl (talk) 14:51, 29 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Terradactyl, I have no doubt that famous people have said this or that thing, especially when they are engaged in publicity. But, again, the content that several editors support, here, for this article, already gives good representation to Gaia. ESS is bigger than Gaia; some subsets of ESS (such as those ideas related to Earth's interior or the space environment) are even not related to Gaia (see the lead). It is not useful to focus too much on one aspect of the very broad set of subjects that is ESS. I imagine that someone could make a case for ESS being "invented" by Humboldt, or, even, somebody else. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 15:01, 29 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Terradactyl. If you did less writing and more reading you would realise that we (that is everyone bar you) agree that Gaia is a facet of ESS, that it should appear in the article, but that it should not be given the undue prominence that your additions persist in attributing to it. I believe that we would also agree that while having a role in the history of ESS, it is neither the origin of this subject (and not even the origin of the "planet as living organism" concept), nor a major current angle of research in the subject. You persist in using carefully chosen secondary sources to give undue weight to Gaia in ESS, and appear blithely unaware of (and unconcerned with) what passes for current scientific research in ESS. We're all happy for contributions here, but not with unjustified POV-pushing. An uninvolved reader visiting here should leave with an understanding of what ESS is, and certainly not the idea that it's all rooted in Gaia - that would be a disservice. --P LUMBAGO 16:25, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Wait, uh, secondary sources? The primary texts used in university curricula are secondary sources? What are primary? That's a joke. Again, you are the POV pushers, not me, as I'm the one asking to cover the range of viewpoints, which you are desperately trying to impede. As I said, if prominent people see ESS/Gaia as identical, that clearly needs to be discussed at the entry, that's all. And that has nothing to do with giving it 'undue prominence' in the article, etc. - I had already been placing it at the end of the article. Again, I've also put more into this article than anyone else currently involved with it that is NOT related to Gaia. Isambard's talk about "publicity" is hardly worth responding to - and further, what is he talking about, "some subsets of ESS (such as those ideas related to Earth's interior or the space environment) are even not related to Gaia"? Doesn't he know the subject matter? Paul Lowman was the very first geologist ever hired by NASA, and started comparative planetology, and ended his career working on Gaia, because the Mars Spirit & Rover started showing more and more about martian tectonics (i.e., the lack of Earth-style, that is), and this led back to those observations from Gaia about life/geological interactions even at this largest scale (Don Anderson had already proposed this kind of thing in the Gaia literature earlier on.....). It's hard to know what he is talking about, frankly......

So what I am asking for here is very simple - clearly, there is no disagreement that Gaia needs to be mentioned. I am simply saying that the relationship between these two things needs to be discussed, with a range of viewpoints of what that relationship is. That's all. Terradactyl (talk) 19:22, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

By the way, since Plumbago rudely writes that I "appear blithely unaware of (and unconcerned with) what passes for current scientific research in ESS" I repeat my earlier question: I want a list of 10 researchers who, if you asked them what they do, they would say, "I do ESS research." OK? Even 5 if you can. If you can't list the most prominent ESS researchers, this is all just pure phoniness.......Terradactyl (talk) 19:35, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Terradactyl, please have a look at the books cited in the lead, which make it clear that ESS is vastly broader than Gaia. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 19:53, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about - 2 of the 3 books "cited in the lead" were only cited by me, initially, and the 3rd one isn't all that appropriate. I haven't complained about your loose use of these sources for your opening sentence, but clearly you don't know those books very well!! After all, I cited Jacobsen et al, saying that Gaia is designed to provide "a single scientific basis for integrating all components of the Earth system" Clearly the authors do not agree with you. They also specifically take up the thorny issue of critics of Gaia theory, and criticize them, rightly, as using early formulations of the theory. Terradactyl (talk) 03:51, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello? The lead, not the two books you favor. Look at the book on the Dynamic Earth. Look at the books on geography. Look at the books in nonlinear systems. They are all about ESS. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 03:59, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello! I assumed by "cited in the lead" you referred to your opening sentence, but this is, in any case, not central to this dispute. What is central is this: Toby Tyrrell, who started all of this, wrote: "If Gaia is accepted as being right (which it isn't) then of course it would be fundamentally important for ESS and should be featured strongly here."

I wouldn't even go so far as Tyrrell says, and most of Gaia should clearly be in the Gaia article, of course. But the big thing is this: many people, and even the academic textbooks on ESS used in degree programs, equate ESS and Gaia, as though they have the same underlying mechanisms but simply go by different names, just as the Schellnhuber et al book said, in my citation. While Tyrrell might like to use a formulation of Gaia where "Gaia is wrong," and that's his choice, it should be obvious that, for all those other people, and all those other texts, etc, Gaia and ESS are, by definition and without any question, equally "right" or "wrong". Therefore, in that situation, Tyrrell suggests himself that Gaia should be featured strongly here.

But I don't go so far as Tyrrell in this. No in-depth discussion of Gaia is needed in this article. I only maintain that the relationship between ESS and Gaia NEEDS to be discussed (and, if it all possible, clarified) here. Thank You! Terradactyl (talk) 23:03, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Moderated Discussion in Progress
Moderated discussion of content issues is in progress at the dispute resolution noticeboard. Any editor who wishes to participate in this discussion is welcome to do so. (Several editors have already been notified. If you wish to be added to the list of editors, I will add you.)  I ask that discussion take place there rather than here, just so that it is all in one place. I also ask that no possibly controversial edits (that is, no edits except copy-edits or the correction of typos) be made to the article without discussion. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:27, 3 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry - I've edited without spotting this (and am guilty of being ignorant of procedure). My bad. I just didn't want to leave something that I'd started half-finished. OCD-tendencies I'm afraid ("there's something wrong on the internet"). Please accept my apologies - I'll stay out of the way till we're done, and am happy for my changes to be reverted. --P LUMBAGO 11:48, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The present (as of 02:29, 8 October 2015 (UTC) ; copying permalinks is problematic on this smartphone) expression of the Gaia Theory in this article seems appropriate weight.  (Also, it appears the DRN is failing; no offense intended to, but  seems to have rejected the "moderator"s proposals. ) — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 02:29, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Creating a DRAFT for the RfC mentioned on the recent DR/N case
I am creating a page on my userspace's sandbox to discuss the creation of an RfC and its wording to settle the dispute filed at the DR/N here, aince there seemed to be 3 out 4 (5?) editors that agreed to using an RfC to settle the contested changes. The draft page can be found at User:Drcrazy102/sandbox/Draft_RfC_for_Earth_System_Science. Please do not comment on the RfC on this talkpage, comment on the Discussion section on the Sandbox page. Cheers, Drcrazy102 (talk) 03:34, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

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Gaia regarded by many as pseudoscience
This article makes reference to the gaia hypothesis as if it was established science. This is far from the case. Esteemed scientists in the fields of evolutionary biology and geosciences such as John Maynard Smith, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Paul Ehrlich, Massimo Pigliucci and Robert May have all harshly criticized the idea with arguments ranging from it's contradiction to current evolutionary thinking to it's unfalsifiability and as such it's inability to be a real scientific hypothesis. See for example Pigluicci and Dawkins.

The article should at the very least be updated to include this criticism that has been levelled against the idea since its first publication 1979. AlwaysUnite (talk) 18:33, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Evaluation 3B03
Evaluating Content - Wiki Education Dashboard

Everything in the article is on topic. There are a few topics that explore beyond the topic of Earth Systems science, such as the relationship of Earth Systems and the Gaia Hypothesis. No information in the article seems out of date.

One thing that can be improved is the lack of detail specifying the scientific fields that incorporate or are related to Earth Systems science. Wikipedia articles usually link readers to articles that are part of or related to the article, if not go in depth into related articles. Not many links are given to readers if they want to learn more about the specific topics, such as groundwater hydrology or interactions between the atmosphere and the biosphere.

The article is neutral, especially in controversial topics such as the Gaia Hypothesis. Both sides of the argument are presented and provide references.

All links are working, and each reference is a peer-reviewed academic journal. No reference is from a website or online article.

The talk page is currently arguing the validity of adding in the Gaia Hypothesis. There are editors who have changed and taken out sections of the Gaia Hypothesis subsection due to the subsection possibly belonging to it's own article. There are also conversations going on debating how much information should even be in the article regarding the Gaia Hypothesis.
 * Talk Page

The article is part of WikiProject Environment and WikiProject Systems. It is rated C-Class and of Mid-importance on the importance scale. There are many different journals and pieces of evidence that are aimed towards proving or disproving Gaia Theory. Since these opinions are related heavily to Earth Systems, why are they not put on here? -TonyMacZ (talk) 07:04, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Question
 * Hello. Gaia hypothesis evolved into Earth systems science. In the beginning, some new-age writers misused the Gaia concept to invoke intentionality and planetary consciousness, which caused some controversy, but it was not part of the scientific Gaia hypothesis. There is absolutely no doubt or controversy that Earth has cycles, patterns, or systems, and that most of them are self-regulated and evolvable. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 19:07, 4 February 2019 (UTC)