ABSTRACT
James Lovelock's Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth should be read in the light of the author's preoccupation with the questions "What is life?" and "How should it be recognized?" These core questions, although simple in nature, were indeed original and critical for the development of Lovelock's ideas of the evolution of life and the Earth as a single living entity. He challenged his fellow scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on the usefulness of conducting experiments for detecting life on Mars from the soil, proposing as an alternative that experiments to determine the composition of Mars's atmosphere would indicate the presence or absence of life. The subject matter was so broad that Lovelock needed advice and collaboration to develop his hypothesis into a theory. While many scientists simply criticized his idea, some agreed to collaborate with him: Dian Hitchcock, Sidney Epton, and Lynn Margulis, particularly, actively helped him develop the Gaia hypothesis.
