In the 1960s the search for alien life inspires the chemist James Lovelock to imagine that life, if it occurred anywhere in the universe would be accompanied by an atmosphere that was in constant flux. He called this the Gaia hypothesis. Since then the idea has been subject to constant misinterpretation. In this episode, Siddhant talks to Richard Boyle about what the Gaia hypothesis is, what it isn't how planetary scale dynamics interact with life and natural selection.

This episode assumes some knowledge of earth systems and evolution.

Richard's paper describing an attempt to Darwinize Gaia

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/reader/10.1098/rstb.2024.0087

Podcast production was supported ...