James Lovelock. (9pm Wed 14th BBC 4)

[bareroots]

we look on scientiffic understanding with the benefit of hind sight. the understanding of evolution and such look so implicit now. but before these understandings and insights were hammered out of the chaos of observable 'creation' by darwin, lemartre and other such genuis (for want of a better word) people were trying to fit all sorts of other understandings to it, lots of 'nice ideas' but alot of them simply did turn out to be 'natural laws' or 'truth'.

[Ian H]

He WAS "trounced" as you put it though mate. For some considerable period his work was left unpublished and unpublishable by the system. The "system" refused to even consider the work. The reason, mostly that it did not have the "package endorsement" of a system slave so to speak.

These academics have no shame....Fickle lot. A testament to the mans humility, professional vision and ideology that he did not simply flick two fingers at those wishing then to bestow their awards on him.

Cheers Paul!

Fair point, poor choice of words on my part, he was well and truly excluded but thankfully not beaten(which is more what i meant to say) by the system, and a great testament indeed to Mr Lovelocks humility.

[Mark Cattell]

Its downloadable on the BBC iplayer if anyone wants a look....

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

there are few truely new ideas, granted, but what lovelock did was to flesh out a 'nice idea' of which there are thousand (all supported by belief) and give it a credance with verifiable fact. Therefore taking it from the realm of 'nice ideas' and bringing it into the realm of truth (dodgy ground i know) (perhaps observable/apparent truth, or understanadable form would be a better)

 

 

 

I find Gaia theory to be so inherently plausable as to be as good as fact to me!

 

It fits with my logic, the very way i think and feel about life on earth makes this fit me like a glove.

 

and when it is brought to you by a man who couldnt give a hoot what he gets out of it or praise from the fratenity you just have to realise there is no hidden agenda or issue, the guy just loves science and nature, he is a "nice man" he came across as though he was just full of life and wonderment in what he sees and does.

 

I hope I am still like that at his age, like I feel now, just full of an insane desire to learn and find out. Though obviously in a different leauge to james lovelock!