The Gaia hypothesis is sometimes viewed from significantly different philosophical perspectives. Some environmentalists view it as an almost conscious process, in which the Earth's ecosystem is literally viewed as a single unified organism. Some evolutionary biologists, on the other hand, view it as an undirected emergent property of the ecosystem: as each individual species pursues its own self-interest, their combined actions tend to have counterbalancing effects on environmental change. Proponents of this view sometimes point to examples of life's actions in the past that have resulted in dramatic change rather than stable equilibrium, such as the conversion of the Earth's atmosphere from a reducing environment to an oxygen-rich one.
the gaia hypothesis is sometimes viewed from significantly different philosophical perspectives some environmentalists view it as an almost conscious process in which the earth's ecosystem is literally viewed as a single unified organism some evolutionary biologists on the other hand view it as an undirected emergent property of the ecosystem as each individual species pursues its own self-interest their combined actions tend to have counterbalancing effects on environmental change proponents of this view sometimes point to examples of life's actions in the past that have resulted in dramatic change rather than stable equilibrium such as the conversion of the earth's atmosphere from a reducing environment to an oxygen-rich one