The Gaia hypothesis is the theory put forward by James Lovelock that proposes the planet is a vast self-regulating organism and that all life on our planet as a collective defines and regulates the conditions that are necessary for that life to continue, and that all life contributes to its own survival as a whole. This is contrasted with the idea that life is simply a large collection of biomechanical processes.
The Gaia hypothesis was first formulated in the mid 1960s and was published in writing in 1979. It has spawned several interesting lines of thought and many new areas of research. It is not substantiated by scientific research, but it does provide new avenues of thought for the study of our planet's life support systems and how life works together.
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