A New Paradigm for the Earth’s Ecosystem: Anastassia Makarieva Speaks about the Biotic Pump in Florence
Everything began with the idea of Charles Darwin of “evolution by natural selection.” It was a dangerous idea according to Daniel Dennett, but there was nothing dangerous in it unless you misunderstood it. And we know how it was misunderstood by the various suprematists, racists, white-supremacists, white-man-burdenists, and the like. But Darwin’s idea was simple: the biosphere is not static but adapts to changes in the ecosystem. That’s all. There is no species in the biosphere that is superior to other species, there is no collective movement towards some kind of “progress” – nothing of the kind. Everything changes to keep the biosphere alive.
Among other things, Darwin’s idea (dangerous or not) was the first attempt to understand the functioning of complex systems – among which one of the most complex is the planetary ecosystem. Curiously, the human brain, itself a complex system, often finds it difficult to understand complex systems, there must be some profound reason for this, but let’s skip the subject. Rather, the concepts proposed by Darwin have also evolved – or adapted – in time. We are beginning to understand that it is not enough to say that the biosphere adapts to changes, is too simple. This is not how complex systems work. They work through the mechanisms we call feedback where each element of the system influences others.
The step forward came from James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis with their concept of Gaia, a name that describes the fact that the biosphere adapts to changes in the ecosystem and at the same time generates changes in the ecosystem. The adaptation is mutual and two-way. Feedback, in essence.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
