Editing Gaia philosophy (section)

== Predecessors to the Gaia theory ==<!-- This section is linked from [[Gaia hypothesis]] -->
There are some mystical, scientific and religious predecessors to the Gaia philosophy, which had a Gaia-like conceptual basis.  Many religious mythologies had a view of Earth as being a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts (e.g. some Native American religions and various forms of [[shamanism]]).

[[Isaac Newton]] wrote of the earth, "Thus this Earth resembles a great animal or rather inanimate vegetable, draws in [[Aether (classical element)|æthereall]] breath for its dayly refreshment & vitall ferment & transpires again with gross exhalations, And according to the condition of all other things living ought to have its times of beginning youth old age & perishing."<ref>Of Natures obvious laws & processes in vegetation, [http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/mss/norm/ALCH00081 Dibner MS 1031]</ref>

[[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin]], a [[paleontologist]] and [[geologist]], believed that evolution fractally unfolded from cell to organism to planet to solar system and ultimately the whole universe, as we humans see it from our limited perspective. Teilhard later influenced [[Thomas Berry]] and many Catholic humanist thinkers of the 20th century.

[[Lewis Thomas]] believed that Earth should be viewed as a single cell; he derived this view from [[Johannes Kepler]]'s view of Earth as a single round organism.<ref>1974,[[The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher]]</ref>

[[Buckminster Fuller]] is generally credited with making the idea respectable in Western scientific circles in the 20th century.  Building to some degree on his observations and artifacts, e.g. the [[Dymaxion map]] of the Earth he created, others began to ask if there was a way to make the Gaia theory scientifically sound.

In 1931, [[Lourens Baas Becking|L.G.M. Baas Becking]] delivered an inaugural lecture about Gaia in the sense of life and earth.<ref>L.G.M. Baas Becking (1931) 'Gaia of leven en aarde' (Gaia or life and earth), inaugural lecture for a chair at Leiden university.</ref> 

[[Oberon Zell-Ravenheart]] in 1970 in an article in ''[[Green Egg]]'' Magazine, independently articulated the Gaia Thesis.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://original.caw.org/articles/theagenesis.html |title=CAWeb - CAW Articles - Theagenesis: The Birth of the Goddess |access-date=2009-03-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100617000211/http://original.caw.org/articles/theagenesis.html |archive-date=2010-06-17 }}</ref>

Many believe that these ideas cannot be considered scientific hypotheses; by definition a scientific hypothesis must make testable predictions. As the above claims are not currently testable, they are outside the bounds of current science. This does not mean that these ideas are not theoretically testable. As one can postulate tests that could be applied, given enough time and space, then these ideas should be seen as scientific hypotheses.

These are conjectures and perhaps can only be considered as social and maybe political philosophy; they may have implications for [[theology]], or ''[[thealogy]]'' as Zell-Ravenheart and [[Isaac Bonewits]] put it.