TSU scientist proposes: human beings will reproduce Earth’s biosphere
2018-08-07
A novel intriguing and provocative idea by an Italian biologist working at the Tomsk State University (TSU) in Russia, suggests that even without invoking teleology, so without any foresight or planning, our planet can be considered the same as a coevolutionary system analogous to a multicellular body: a super-unit of selection. Dr. Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, associate professor at the Biological Institute of the TSU, in a paper entitle “Is Gaia alive? The future of a symbiotic planet” - published this week in the scientific journal “Futures” - described different situations according to which “Gaia”, our Earth, would be able to reproduce and to transfer her planetary genome to other uninhabited or inhabited planets. The scientist argues that Homo sapiens sapiens, the modern human beings, could act as germinal cells carrying a specific planetary genome, but it is unlikely for us to reproduce (or survive disconnected from Earth) on another Gaian system. As a spermatozoon, which loses its flagellum and acrosome while entering into the egg of another body, therefore changing its identity, a human being can be considered just as a carrier of its body’s (i.e., Gaia’s) genetic information, not of himself: a means more than an aim. Many other taxa could have evolved and been able to operate as germinal units of propagation, which might be the case on other Gaian planets.
Read more: http://en.tsu.ru/news/tsu-scientist-proposes-human-beings-will-reproduce-earth-s-biosphere
Read more: http://en.tsu.ru/news/tsu-scientist-proposes-human-beings-will-reproduce-earth-s-biosphere
