The book "Gaia: A new look at life on earth", written by J.E. Lovelock, introduces a new- age religion represented by the Gaia hypothesis. According to the Gaia hypothesis, the physical and chemical state of the terrestrial surface is not a set of accidental conditions, but a dynamic equilibrium, called homoeostasis, which is generated and maintained by life itself to match its needs; Gaia.
             James Lovelock discovered Gaia from outer space. In the 1960's he was asked by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Nasa to help design experiments to detect life on Mars. The Viking Lander gathered and tested some Martian soil for life with no results. Lovelock had predicted this forehand by analyzing the atmospheric conditions of Mars- "it is in a dead equilibrium"(J.E. Lovelock). By contrast, the atmosphere of Earth is in a "far from equilibrium"(J.E. Lovelock) state, meaning that there was some other "complex process"(J.E. Lovelock) going on which maintained such an unlikely balance. He began thinking that what he was seeing was not so much a planet filled with diverse life forms, but a planet transfigured and transformed by a self-evolving and self-regulating living system. By the nature of its activity it seemed to qualify as a living being. He named that being Gaia, after the Greek goddess, which drew the living world forth from chaos.
             According to the Gaia hypothesis, "the history of life on earth has been a progressive modification of the planet's chemistry and temperature by biological organisms to enhance their own flourishing."(J.E. Lovelock) For example, Lovelock says the earth's atmosphere was modified over billions of years, by photosynthetic microorganisms, "from one that was predominantly carbon dioxide and methane, into its current oxygen-rich state."(J.E.Lovelock) This oxygen-rich atmosphere set the stage for the evolution of multi-cellular life that took off during the '...