Andreas Cellarius hypothesis, demonstrating the planetary motions in eccentric and epicyclical orbits

A hypothesis (from Greek ὑπόθεσις; plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The term derives from the Greek, ὑποτιθέναι – hypotithenai meaning "to put under" or "to suppose".^[1] For a hypothesis to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous observations that cannot satisfactorily be explained with the available scientific theories. Even though the words "hypothesis" and "theory" are often used synonymously, a scientific hypothesis is not the same as a scientific theory. A working hypothesis is a provisionally accepted hypothesis proposed for further research.^[1]

In a related but distinguishable usage, the term hypothesis is used in formal logic for the antecedent of a proposition; thus in the proposition "If P, then Q", P denotes the hypothesis (or antecedent); Q can be called a consequent. P is the assumption in a (possibly counterfactual) What If question.

The adjective hypothetical, meaning "having the nature of a hypothesis", or "being assumed to exist as an immediate consequence of a hypothesis", can refer to any of these meanings of the term "hypothesis".

Uses[link]

In its ancient usage, hypothesis also refers to a summary of the plot of a classical drama.

In Plato's Meno (86e–87b), Socrates dissects virtue with a method used by mathematicians,^[2] that of "investigating from a hypothesis."^[3] In this sense, 'hypothesis' refers to a clever idea or to a convenient mathematical approach that simplifies cumbersome calculations.^[4] Cardinal Bellarmine gave a famous example of this usage in the warning issued to Galileo in the early 17th century: that he must not treat the motion of the Earth as a reality, but merely as a hypothesis.^[5]

In common usage in the 21st century, a hypothesis refers to a provisional idea whose merit requires evaluation. For proper evaluation, the framer of a hypothesis needs to define specifics in operational terms. A hypothesis requires more work by the researcher in order to either confirm or disprove it. In due course, a confirmed hypothesis may become part of a theory or occasionally may grow to become a theory itself. Normally, scientific hypotheses have the form of a mathematical model.^[6] Sometimes, but not always, one can also formulate them as existential statements, stating that some particular instance of the phenomenon under examination has some characteristic and causal explanations, which have the general form of universal statements, stating that every instance of the phenomenon has a particular characteristic.

Any useful hypothesis will enable predictions by reasoning (including deductive reasoning). It might predict the outcome of an experiment in a laboratory setting or the observation of a phenomenon in nature. The prediction may also invoke statistics and only talk about probabilities. Karl Popper, following others, has argued that a hypothesis must be falsifiable, and that one cannot regard a proposition or theory as scientific if it does not admit the possibility of being shown false. Other philosophers of science have rejected the criterion of falsifiability or supplemented it with other criteria, such as verifiability (e.g., verificationism) or coherence (e.g., confirmation holism). The scientific method involves experimentation on the basis of hypotheses to answer questions and explore observations.

In framing a hypothesis, the investigator must not currently know the outcome of a test or that it remains reasonably under continuing investigation. Only in such cases does the experiment, test or study potentially increase the probability of showing the truth of a hypothesis. If the researcher already knows the outcome, it counts as a "consequence" — and the researcher should have already considered this while formulating the hypothesis. If one cannot assess the predictions by observation or by experience, the hypothesis classes as not yet useful, and must wait for others who might come afterward to make possible the needed observations. For example, a new technology or theory might make the necessary experiments feasible.

Scientific hypothesis[link]

People refer to a trial solution to a problem as a hypothesis, often called an "educated guess"^[7][8] because it provides a suggested solution based on the evidence. Experimenters may test and reject several hypotheses before solving the problem.

According to Schick and Vaughn,^[9] researchers weighing up alternative hypotheses may take into consideration:

• Testability (compare falsifiability as discussed above)
• Parsimony (as in the application of "Occam's razor", discouraging the postulation of excessive numbers of entities)
• Scope – the apparent application of the hypothesis to multiple cases of phenomena
• Fruitfulness – the prospect that a hypothesis may explain further phenomena in the future
• Conservatism – the degree of "fit" with existing recognized knowledge-systems.

Working hypothesis[link]

A 'working hypothesis' is a hypothesis that is provisionally accepted as a basis for further research^[10] in the hope that a tenable theory will be produced, even if the hypothesis ultimately fails.^[11] Like all hypotheses, a working hypothesis is constructed as a statement of expectations, which can be linked to the exploratory research purpose in empirical investigation and are often used as a conceptual framework in qualitative research.^[12][13]

In recent years, philosophers of science have tried to integrate the various approaches to evaluating hypotheses, and the scientific method in general, to form a more complete system that integrates the individual concerns of each approach. Notably, Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend, Karl Popper's colleague and student, respectively, have produced novel attempts at such a synthesis.

Hypotheses, concepts and measurement[link]

Concepts, as abstract units of meaning, play a key role in the development and testing of hypotheses. Concepts are the basic components of hypotheses. Most formal hypotheses connect concepts by specifying the expected relationships between concepts. For example, a simple relational hypothesis such as "education increases income" specifies a positive relationship between the concepts "education" and "income." This abstract or conceptual hypothesis cannot be tested. First, it must be operationalized or situated in the real world by rules of interpretation. Consider again the simple hypothesis "Education increases Income." To test the hypothesis the abstract meaning of education and income must be derived or operationalized. The concepts should be measured. Education could be measured by "years of school completed" or "highest degree completed" etc. Income could be measured by "hourly rate of pay" or "yearly salary" etc.

When a set of hypotheses are grouped together they become a type of conceptual framework. When a conceptual framework is complex and incorporates causality or explanation it is generally referred to as a theory. According to noted philosopher of science Carl Gustav Hempel "An adequate empirical interpretation turns a theoretical system into a testable theory: The hypothesis whose constituent terms have been interpreted become capable of test by reference to observable phenomena. Frequently the interpreted hypothesis will be derivative hypotheses of the theory; but their confirmation or disconfirmation by empirical data will then immediately strengthen or weaken also the primitive hypotheses from which they were derived."^[14]

Hempel provides a useful metaphor that describes the relationship between a conceptual framework and the framework as it is observed and perhaps tested (interpreted framework). "The whole system floats, as it were, above the plane of observation and is anchored to it by rules of interpretation. These might be viewed as strings which are not part of the network but link certain points of the latter with specific places in the plane of observation. By virtue of those interpretative connections, the network can function as a scientific theory"^[15] Hypotheses with concepts anchored in the plane of observation are ready to be tested. In "actual scientific practice the process of framing a theoretical structure and of interpreting it are not always sharply separated, since the intended interpretation usually guides the construction of the theoretician."^[16] It is, however, "possible and indeed desirable, for the purposes of logical clarification, to separate the two steps conceptually."^[16]

Statistical hypothesis testing[link]

When a possible correlation or similar relation between phenomena is investigated, such as, for example, whether a proposed remedy is effective in treating a disease, that is, at least to some extent and for some patients, the hypothesis that a relation exists cannot be examined the same way one might examine a proposed new law of nature: in such an investigation a few cases in which the tested remedy shows no effect do not falsify the hypothesis. Instead, statistical tests are used to determine how likely it is that the overall effect would be observed if no real relation as hypothesized exists. If that likelihood is sufficiently small (e.g., less than 1%), the existence of a relation may be assumed. Otherwise, any observed effect may as well be due to pure chance.

In statistical hypothesis testing two hypotheses are compared, which are called the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis. The null hypothesis is the hypothesis that states that there is no relation between the phenomena whose relation is under investigation, or at least not of the form given by the alternative hypothesis. The alternative hypothesis, as the name suggests, is the alternative to the null hypothesis: it states that there is some kind of relation. The alternative hypothesis may take several forms, depending on the nature of the hypothesized relation; in particular, it can be two-sided (for example: there is some effect, in a yet unknown direction) or one-sided (the direction of the hypothesized relation, positive or negative, is fixed in advance).

Conventional significance levels for testing the hypotheses are .10, .05, and .01. Whether the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted, all must be determined in advance, before the observations are collected or inspected. If these criteria are determined later, when the data to be tested is already known, the test is invalid.^[17]

It is important to mention that the above procedure is actually dependent on the number of the participants (units or sample size) that is included in the study. For instance, the sample size may be too small to reject a null hypothesis and, therefore, is recommended to specify the sample size from the beginning. It is advisable to define a small, medium and large effect size for each of a number of the important statistical tests which are used to test the hypotheses.

See also[link]

Wikiversity has learning materials about Hypothesis

Look up hypothesis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Axiom
• Case study
• Conceptual framework
• Confirmation holism
• Conjecture
• Ecological fallacy
• Empiricism
• Explanandum
• Hypothesis Theory, a research area in Cognitive Psychology
• Learning
• Logic
• Logical Positivism
• Operationalization
• Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica for Newton's position on hypotheses
• Reductionism
• Research design
• Scientific method
• Sociology of scientific knowledge
• Theorem
• Theory
• Thought experiment
• Working hypothesis

References[link]

James Lovelock
Lovelock in 2005
Born	(1919-07-26) 26 July 1919 (age 92) Letchworth, Hertfordshire, England, UK
Residence	England, UK
Nationality	British
Fields	Chemistry, earth science
Institutions	Independent researcher
Alma mater	University of Manchester London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine University of London Harvard Medical School
Known for	Electron capture detector Gaia hypothesis
Notable awards	FRS, 1974 Tswett Medal, 1975 ACS, 1980 WMO Norbert Gerbier Prize, 1988 Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for the Environment, 1990 CBE, 1990 Volvo Environment Prize, 1996 CH, 2003 Wollaston Medal[2], 2006 Arne Naess Chair in Global Justice and the Environment [3], 2007

James Ephraim Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS, Ph.D (born 26 July 1919) is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling the chemical and physical environment.

Biography[link]

James Lovelock was born in Letchworth Garden City in Hertfordshire, England, to working class parents who were strong believers in education. Nell, his mother started work at 13 in a pickle factory. His father, Tom, had served six months hard labour for poaching in his teens and was illiterate until attending technical college. The family moved to London where his dislike of authority made him, by his own account, an unhappy pupil at Strand School.^[1] Lovelock could not afford to go to university after school, something which he believes helped prevent him becoming over-specialized and aided the development of Gaia theory. He worked at a photography firm, attending Birkbeck College during the evenings, before being accepted for chemistry at the University of Manchester although he could only pay for two years of the three-year course. Lovelock worked at a Quaker farm before a recommendation from his professor led to him taking up a Medical Research Council post^[2] working on ways of shielding soldiers from burns. Lovelock refused to use the shaved and anaesthetised rabbits that were used as burn victims, and exposed his own skin to heat radiation instead, an experience he describes as "exquisitely painful".^[3] His student status enabled temporary deferment of military service during the Second World War, but he registered as a conscientious objector.^[4] He later abandoned this position in the light of Nazi atrocities and tried to enlist for war service, but was told that his medical research was too valuable for this to be considered.^{[citation needed]} In 1948 Lovelock received a Ph.D. degree in medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Within the United States he has conducted research at Yale, Baylor College of Medicine, and Harvard University.^[2]

Career[link]

A lifelong inventor, Lovelock has created and developed many scientific instruments, some of which were designed for NASA in its program of planetary exploration. It was while working as a consultant for NASA that Lovelock developed the Gaia Hypothesis, for which he is most widely known. He also claims to have invented the microwave oven[4].

In early 1961, Lovelock was engaged by NASA to develop sensitive instruments for the analysis of extraterrestrial atmospheres and planetary surfaces. The Viking program, that visited Mars in the late 1970s, was motivated in part to determine whether Mars supported life, and many of the sensors and experiments that were ultimately deployed aimed to resolve this issue. During work on a precursor of this program, Lovelock became interested in the composition of the Martian atmosphere, reasoning that many life forms on Mars would be obliged to make use of it (and, thus, alter it). However, the atmosphere was found to be in a stable condition close to its chemical equilibrium, with very little oxygen, methane, or hydrogen, but with an overwhelming abundance of carbon dioxide. To Lovelock, the stark contrast between the Martian atmosphere and chemically dynamic mixture of that of our Earth's biosphere was strongly indicative of the absence of life on the planet.^[5] However, when they were finally launched to Mars, the Viking probes still searched (unsuccessfully) for extant life there.

Lovelock invented the electron capture detector, which ultimately assisted in discoveries about the persistence of CFCs and their role in stratospheric ozone depletion.^[6][7][8] After studying the operation of the Earth's sulfur cycle,^[9] Lovelock and his colleagues developed the CLAW hypothesis as a possible example of biological control of the Earth's climate.^[10]

Lovelock was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974. He served as the president of the Marine Biological Association (MBA) from 1986 to 1990, and has been an Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford (formerly Green College, Oxford) since 1994. He has been awarded a number of prestigious prizes including the Tswett Medal (1975), an ACS chromatography award (1980), the WMO Norbert Gerbier Prize (1988), the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for the Environment (1990) and the RGS Discovery Lifetime award (2001). In 2006 he received the Wollaston Medal, the Geological Society's highest Award, whose previous recipients include Charles Darwin [5]. He became a CBE in 1990, and a Companion of Honour in 2003.

An independent scientist, inventor, and author, Lovelock works out of a barn-turned-laboratory on the Devon/Cornwall border.

On May 8 2012, he appeared on the Radio Four series "The Life Scientific", talking to Jim al-Khalili about the Gaia hypothesis. On the programme, he mentioned how he had a claim for inventing the microwave oven. He also mentioned how his ideas had been received by various people, including Jonathan Porritt.

CFCs[link]

Reconstructed time-series of atmospheric concentrations of CFC-11.^[11]

After the development of his electron capture detector, in the late 1960s, Lovelock was the first to detect the widespread presence of CFCs in the atmosphere.^[6] He found a concentration of 60 parts per trillion of CFC-11 over Ireland and, in a partially self-funded research expedition in 1972, went on to measure the concentration of CFC-11 from the northern hemisphere to the Antarctic aboard the research vessel RRS Shackleton.^[7][12] He found the gas in each of the 50 air samples that he collected but, not realising that the breakdown of CFCs in the stratosphere would release chlorine that posed a threat to the ozone layer, concluded that the level of CFCs constituted "no conceivable hazard".^[12] He has since stated that he meant "no conceivable toxic hazard".

However, the experiment did provide the first useful data on the ubiquitous presence of CFCs in the atmosphere. The damage caused to the ozone layer by the photolysis of CFCs was later discovered by Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina. After hearing a lecture on the subject of Lovelock's results,^[13] they embarked on research that resulted in the first published paper that suggested a link between stratospheric CFCs and ozone depletion in 1974, and later shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Paul Crutzen) for their work.^[14]

Gaia[link]

First formulated by Lovelock during the 1960s as a result of work for NASA concerned with detecting life on Mars,^[15] the Gaia hypothesis proposes that living and non-living parts of the Earth form a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism.^[16][17] Named after the Greek goddess Gaia at the suggestion of novelist William Golding,^[12] the hypothesis postulates that the biosphere has a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that acts to sustain life.

While the Gaia hypothesis was readily accepted by many in the environmentalist community, it has not been widely accepted within the scientific community. Among its more famous critics are the evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins, Ford Doolittle, and Stephen Jay Gould – notable, given the diversity of this trio's views on other scientific matters. These (and other) critics have questioned how natural selection operating on individual organisms can lead to the evolution of planetary-scale homeostasis.^[18]

Lovelock has responded to these criticisms with models such as Daisyworld, that illustrate how individual-level effects can translate to planetary homeostasis, under the right circumstances.

Nuclear power[link]

Lovelock has become concerned about the threat of global warming from the greenhouse effect. In 2004 he caused a media sensation when he broke with many fellow environmentalists by pronouncing that "only nuclear power can now halt global warming". In his view, nuclear energy is the only realistic alternative to fossil fuels that has the capacity to both fulfill the large scale energy needs of humankind while also reducing greenhouse emissions. He is an open member of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy.

In 2005, against the backdrop of renewed UK government interest in nuclear power, Lovelock again publicly announced his support for nuclear energy, stating, "I am a Green, and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy".^[19] Although these interventions in the public debate on nuclear power are recent, his views on it are longstanding. In his 1988 book The Ages of Gaia he states:

"I have never regarded nuclear radiation or nuclear power as anything other than a normal and inevitable part of the environment. Our prokaryotic forebears evolved on a planet-sized lump of fallout from a star-sized nuclear explosion, a supernova that synthesised the elements that go to make our planet and ourselves."^[12]

In The Revenge of Gaia^[20] (2006), where he puts forward the concept of sustainable retreat, Lovelock writes:

"A television interviewer once asked me, 'But what about nuclear waste? Will it not poison the whole biosphere and persist for millions of years?' I knew this to be a nightmare fantasy wholly without substance in the real world... One of the striking things about places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife. This is true of the land around Chernobyl, the bomb test sites of the Pacific, and areas near the United States' Savannah River nuclear weapons plant of the Second World War. Wild plants and animals do not perceive radiation as dangerous, and any slight reduction it may cause in their lifespans is far less a hazard than is the presence of people and their pets... I find it sad, but all too human, that there are vast bureaucracies concerned about nuclear waste, huge organisations devoted to decommissioning power stations, but nothing comparable to deal with that truly malign waste, carbon dioxide."

The revenge of Gaia[link]

In James Lovelock's 2006 book, The Revenge of Gaia, he argues that the lack of respect humans have had for Gaia, through the damage done to rainforests and the reduction in planetary biodiversity, is testing Gaia's capacity to minimize the effects of the addition of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This eliminates the planet's negative feedbacks and increases the likelihood of homeostatic positive feedback potential associated with runaway global warming. Similarly the warming of the oceans is extending the oceanic thermocline layer of tropical oceans into the Arctic and Antarctic waters, preventing the rise of oceanic nutrients into the surface waters and eliminating the algal blooms of phytoplankton on which oceanic foodchains depend. As phytoplankton and forests are the main ways in which Gaia draws down greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, taking it out of the atmosphere, the elimination of this environmental buffering will see, according to Lovelock, most of the earth becoming uninhabitable for humans and other life-forms by the middle of this century, with a massive extension of tropical deserts.

In his most recent book, "The Vanishing Face of Gaia",^[21] he rejects scientific modelling that disagrees with the scientific findings that sea levels are rising faster, and Arctic ice is melting faster, than the models predict and he suggests that we may already be beyond the tipping point of terrestrial climate into a permanently hot state. Given these conditions, Lovelock expects human civilization will be hard pressed to survive. He expects the change to be similar to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum when atmospheric concentration of CO₂ was 450 ppm. At that point the Arctic Ocean was 23 °C and had crocodiles in it,^[22][23] with the rest of the world mostly scrub and desert.

Climate and mass human mortality[link]

Writing in the British newspaper The Independent in January 2006, Lovelock argues that, as a result of global warming, "billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable" by the end of the 21st century.^[24] He has been quoted in The Guardian that 80% of humans will perish by 2100 AD, and this climate change will last 100,000 years. According to James Lovelock, by 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine. Indeed "[t]he people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain".^[25]

"By 2040, parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe. We are talking about Paris – as far north as Berlin. In Britain we will escape because of our oceanic position."^[25]

"If you take the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions, then by 2040 every summer in Europe will be as hot as it was in 2003 – between 110F and 120F. It is not the death of people that is the main problem, it is the fact that the plants can't grow – there will be almost no food grown in Europe."^[25]

"We are about to take an evolutionary step and my hope is that the species will emerge stronger. It would be hubris to think humans as they now are God's chosen race."^[25]

He further predicts, the average temperature in temperate regions will increase by as much as 8°C and by up to 5°C in the tropics, leaving much of the world's land uninhabitable and unsuitable for farming, with northerly migrations and new cities created in the Arctic. He predicts much of Europe will become uninhabitable having turned to desert and Britain will become Europe's "life-raft" due to its stable temperature caused by being surrounded by the ocean. He suggests that "we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can".^[24]

He partly retreated from this position in a September 2007 address to the World Nuclear Association's Annual Symposium, suggesting that climate change would stabilise and prove survivable, and that the Earth itself is in "no danger" because it would stabilise in a new state. Life, however, might be forced to migrate en masse to remain in habitable climes.^[26] In 2008, he became a patron of Population Matters, (formerly known as the Optimum Population Trust), which campaigns for a gradual decline in the global human population to a sustainable level.^[27]

In a March 2010 interview with the Guardian newspaper, he said that democracy might have to be "put on hold" to prevent climate change.^[28] He continued:

"Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

Geoengineering proposal[link]

In September 2007, Lovelock and Chris Rapley proposed the construction of ocean pumps to pump water up from below the thermocline to "fertilize algae in the surface waters and encourage them to bloom".^[29] The basic idea was to accelerate the transfer of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean by increasing primary production and enhancing the export of organic carbon (as marine snow) to the deep ocean. A scheme similar to that proposed by Lovelock and Rapley is already being independently developed by a commercial company.^[30]

The proposal attracted widespread media attention^{[31][32][33][34]} and criticism.^[35][36][37] Commenting on the proposal, Corinne Le Quéré, a University of East Anglia researcher, said "It doesn’t make sense. There is absolutely no evidence that geoengineering options work or even go in the right direction. I’m astonished that they published this. Before any geoengineering is put to work a massive amount of research is needed – research which will take 20 to 30 years".^[31] Other researchers have claimed that "this scheme would bring water with high natural pCO₂ levels (associated with the nutrients) back to the surface, potentially causing exhalation of CO₂".^[37] Lovelock subsequently said that his proposal was intended to stimulate interest and research would be the next step.^[38]

Global warming[link]

In an April 2012 interview Lovelock stated that he had previously been "alarmist" about the timing of climate change, but not about climate change itself: he still believes the climate should be warming although the rate of change is not as once thought:

"The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said…The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time ... it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising - carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that . . . There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now," he said.^[39]

He is currently writing a book discussing how humanity can help regulate the Earth’s natural systems.^[39]

Books[link]

• Lovelock, James (2009). The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can. Allen Lane. ISBN 978-1-84614-185-0. 
• Lovelock, James (2006). The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity. Santa Barbara (California): Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9914-4. 
• Lovelock, James (2005). Gaia: Medicine for an Ailing Planet. Gaia Books. ISBN 1-85675-231-3. 
• Lovelock, James (2001) [Gaia Books 1991]. Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-521674-1. 
• Lovelock, James (2000) [1979]. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-286218-9. 
• Lovelock, James (2000). Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860429-7.  (Lovelock's autobiography)
• Lovelock, James (1995) [1988]. Ages of Gaia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-393-31239-9. 
• Lovelock, James (1991). Scientists on Gaia. Cambridge, Mass., USA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-19310-8. 
• Lovelock, James; Michael Allaby (1984). The Greening of Mars. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-32967-3. 
• Lovelock, James; Michael Allaby (1983). Great Extinction. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-18011-X. 

Portraits[link]

In March 2012 the National Portrait Gallery unveiled a new portrait of Lovelock by British artist Michael Gaskell (2011). The collection also has two photographic portraits by Nick Sinclair (1993) and Paul Tozer (1994).^[40] The archive of the Royal Society of Arts has a 2009 image taken by Anne-Katrin Purkiss.^[41] Lovelock agreed to sit for sculptor Jon Edgar in Devon during 2007, as part of The Environment Triptych (2008)^[42] along with heads of Mary Midgley and Richard Mabey. A bronze head is in the collection of the sitter and the terracotta is in the archive of the artist.^[43]

See also[link]

• Gaia Symphony

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: James Lovelock

• James Lovelock's personal website
• James Lovelock tells his life story at Web of Stories (video)
• "Why Gaia is wreaking revenge on our abuse of the environment": Article about Lovelock published in the 'Independent'
• "Nuclear power is the only green solution": Lovelock article published in the 'Independent'
• Listen to an oral history interview with James Lovelock, recorded for An Oral History of British Science at the British Library.

Interviews[link]

• Lovelock at the Guardian
• Locklock at the BBC
• Dr. Lovelock Lectures on The Vanishing Face of Gaia Presented by Corporate Knights Magazine, 26 May 2009
• Audio: James Lovelock in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion show The Forum 1 st March 2009
• RSA Vision webcast – James Lovelock in conversation with Tim Radford the Vanishing Face of Gaia, 23 February 2009.
• Audio interview from Ideas:How to think about science, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2 January 2008. (Real Audio)
• Climate Change on the Living Earth, Public lecture by James Lovelock, The Royal Society, 29 October 2007.
• The Prophet of Climate Change, Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone, 17 October 2007.
• Radio interview with James Lovelock, KQED San Francisco, 13 September 2006.
• Creel Commission: reflections on meeting James Lovelock and a recent interview with him 26-08-2005

Godfrey Bloom MEP
Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber, UK
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 May 2004
Personal details
Born	(1949-11-22) 22 November 1949 (age 62) London, England
Nationality	British
Political party	UKIP

Godfrey Bloom (born 22 November 1949 in London)^[1] is a Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). He was first elected in 2004, and re-elected in 2009.

Before becoming an MEP, Bloom worked as a financial economist.^[1][2]

Godfrey Bloom is the president of the European Alliance for Freedom, a eurosceptic pan-European political party.^[3]

Career as an MEP[link]

In 2004, Bloom's election to the Yorkshire and the Humber seat was the UKIP's first seat in the region in the European elections.^[2]

Comments on the counterproductive nature of women's rights[link]

A few weeks after his appointment to the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality on 20 July 2004, Bloom told an interview in Strasbourg that, "No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age. That isn't politically correct, is it, but it's a fact of life. The more women's rights you have, it's actually a bar to their employment."^[4] Around the same time, he was reported^{[by whom?]} as commenting, "I just don't think [women] clean behind the fridge enough" and that "I am here to represent Yorkshire women who always have dinner on the table when you get home."^[5][6]

Bloom told BBC Radio 4's Today that his comments were "said for fun" to illustrate a more serious point, that equal-rights legislation was in fact putting women out of work.^[6] Bloom claimed that MEPs had "little or no business experience" and did not understand the consequences of their actions.^[6]

Bloom confessed that he used to visit brothels in Hong Kong claiming that "terrified young women beaten into prostitution often from Eastern Europe... is only a very small aspect of the flesh trade,", and concluded that "in short, most girls do it because they want to."^[7]

After inviting students from the University of Cambridge Women's Rugby Club to Brussels, he was accused of sexual harassment, misogyny, and use of offensive language. One student later handed in a formal letter of protest to the President of the European Parliament, critizising Bloom's behaviour. Bloom who sponsored the club with £3,000 a year, later admitted making misogyny comments but denied a sexual harassment.^[8][9]

Speeches made while under the influence of alcohol[link]

In December 2008, Daily Telegraph blogger and fellow MEP Daniel Hannan reported that Bloom "had to be carried out by an intern" after making a European Parliament speech while drunk.^[10] In February 2012, Bloom admitted to making a speech in Strasbourg having consumed alcohol and "very heavy" prescription painkillers.^[11]

Comments on climate change[link]

Bloom is a prominent non-believer of anthropogenic global warming theory. He stated in 2009: "As far as I am concerned man-made global warming is nothing more than a hypothesis that hasn't got any basis in fact. Every day more scientists are modifying their initial views." ^[12] He claims that the alleged consensus opinion of scientists about climate change is a "Scam Scam Scam!" of "climate crooks".^[13]

Comments on the Rainbow Warrior bombing[link]

Bloom was filmed at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen congratulating the French for bombing the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace ship, in 1985. Bloom's comment prompted outrage from the environmental group, which accused him of "celebrating" the killing of Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira in the bombing in Auckland. Bloom was filmed posing in front of the present Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior II, during the climate summit at the Copenhagen harbour. In the footage, he said: "Here we have one of the most truly fascist boats since 1945, Well done the French for sinking (it)." The video appeared to have been uploaded to Bloom's YouTube channel Goddersvision on 16 December during the last days of the summit, but was later taken down.^[14][15]

Nazi jibe-incident[link]

On 24 November 2010 Bloom was ejected from the European Parliament after directing a Nazi slogan at a German MEP Martin Schulz as the latter was speaking during a debate on the economic crisis in Ireland. Godfrey Bloom interrupted Schulz and said "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" - one people, one empire, one leader.^[16] This was reference to the European Union increasing its powers in the midst of the Euro crisis, making a comparison to that of Nazi Germany.

He was then removed by the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, who told Bloom: "As you know, most of the members of the chamber cannot accept your behaviour. I will therefore ask you to leave the chamber at this point.".

This decision generated heavy protest from Barry Madlener, a representative of the Dutch Freedom Party, who noted that Schulz had himself recently referred to fellow MEP Daniël van der Stoep (also a member of the Dutch Freedom Party) as being ´a fascist´ for which Schulz himself was not removed. On the same day, Bloom published the following statement on his web page: "'My father spent 5 years of his youth fighting the ideals of the fascist Schultz. I need make no apologies on behalf of my late father or myself for telling the truth.'"^[17]

Notes[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} "Godfrey Bloom". European Parliament. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public/geoSearch/view.do?country=GB&partNumber=1&zone=Yorkshire+and+the+Humber&language=EN&id=28513. Retrieved 2010-01-21. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "UKIP wins first seat in region". BBC. 2004-06-14. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_yorkshire/3803065.stm. 
3. ^ About EAF, European Alliance for Freedom, http://www.eurallfree.org/?q=node/65, retrieved 7 July 2011 
4. ^ Booth, Jenny (2004-07-20). "UKIP man champions a woman's right to clean fridges". London: TimesOnline. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article459538.ece?print=yes&randnum=1151003209000. 
5. ^ "UKIP MEP in row over working women". BBC. 2004-07-21. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3912205.stm. 
6. ^ ^{a b c} Daniel, Mark (2005). Cranks and gadflies: the story of UKIP. Timewell Press. p. 149. ISBN 1-85725-209-8, ISBN 978-1-85725-209-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=My7bPb1XnVIC&pg=PA142. 
7. ^ http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/around-yorkshire/local-stories/brothel_visit_euro_mp_under_fire_after_saying_most_prostitutes_not_exploited_1_2609582
8. ^ http://archive.varsity.co.uk/605.pdf
9. ^ The Independent (London). 16 October 2004. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-man-in-brussels-faces-harassment-claim-after-trying-to-quash-his-sexist-reputation-6159897.html. 
10. ^ Hannan, Daniel (10 December 2008). "A drunk Eurosceptic makes more sense than a sober federalist". London: Daily Telegraph. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/5940683/A_drunk_Eurosceptic_makes_more_sense_than_a_sober_federalist/. Retrieved 8 February 2012. 
11. ^ "UKIP MEP makes Euro Parliament speech on booze and drugs cocktail". Political Scrapbook. 6 February 2012. http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/02/ukip-mep-makes-euro-parliament-speech-on-booze-and-drugs-cocktail/. Retrieved 8 February 2012. 
12. ^ Climate change: man-made or myth? Len Tingle, BBC News, 1 October 2009.
13. ^ Climate crooks
14. ^ "Rainbow Warrior bombing praised". The New Zealand Herald. 8 February 2010. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10624771. Retrieved 8 February 2010. 
15. ^ "MEP Godfrey Bloom hails Greenpeace ship attack". BBC. 10 February 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_yorkshire/8509540.stm. 
16. ^ BBC news on the incident
17. ^ [1] http://www.godfreybloommep.co.uk/

External links[link]

• Official website
• Profile on European Parliament website
• YouTube video on Nazi slur incident in European Parliament
• YouTube video showing Godfrey Bloom being escorted out of the plenary meeting at the European Parliament in Strasbourg