Lovelock, J. E.

As a Fellow of the Royal Society, the author worked on the NASA space program for many years. He was a Visiting Professor of Cybernetics at Reading University and inventor of the electron capture detector.

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We have . . . defined Gaia as a complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet. Gaia, A new Look at Life on Earth, 1979.

One of the lesser-known requirements for a living cell is that, with rare exceptions, the salinity of either its internal fluids or its external environment must never exceed for more than a few seconds a value of 6 per cent. Ibid.

It is pointless to blame the universe and its laws for defects in the human condition. Ibid.

It would be dauntingly difficult to test experimentally the notion that the instinct to associate fitness with beauty favors survival, but it might be worth a try. Ibid.

The allegory of Orwell's Animal Farm takes on a deeper significance when we realize that all human societies in one way or another regard the world as their farm. Ibid.

It . . . seems probable that the sperm whale makes intelligent use of the vast brain it possesses, perhaps at thought levels well beyond our understanding. Ibid.