The implications of the Gaia hypothesis are multitudinous. Three stand out as particularly important. First, nature can no longer be seen as a random assortment of different forms of life. Second, living organisms, instead of being competitive and aggressive, must on the contrary cooperate with each other and third, Gaia is best seen as a cybernetic system capable of maintaining its stability

"Lynn Margulis is one of the most successful synthetic thinkers in modern biology. This collection of her work, enhanced by essays co-authored with Dorion Sagan, is a welcome introduction to the full breadth of her many contributions." EDWARD O. WILSON, AUTHOR OF THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE "An important contribution to the history of the 20th century. Read it and you will taste the flavor of real science." JAMES LOVELOCK, AUTHOR OF GAIA: A NEW LOOK AT LIFE ON EARTH "Truly inspirational and of fundamental importance. This thoughtful series of essays on some of the largest questions concerning the nature of life on earth deserves careful study."PETER RAVEN, MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN

Global environmental destruction, growing inequality, and the persistent poverty afflicting the majority of humans on the planet challenge Christian theorists, theologians, and ethicists in their pursuit of an ethical vision that is both environmentally sustainable and just for all of creation. Too often their visions – which start with traditional understandings of the Christian faith, prevalent approaches to science, or current ethical models – are inadequate. In Convergent Knowing Simon Appolloni proposes a new framework for ethical deliberation in which the epistemological lines between religion and science are somewhat blurred. This framework opens up avenues to explore new paradigms for Christianity, science, and liberation while addressing interrelated questions not always manifest within the religion, science, and ethics debates: what kind of ethics, what kind of science, and what kind of Christianity do we need today and tomorrow when the liberation of countless subjects of creation is at stake? Exploring and analyzing the work of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Leonardo Boff, Diarmuid O'Murchu, and Thomas Berry, four Christian ethical thinkers who have borrowed from the natural sciences to unite a liberationist agenda with an environmental ethic, Convergent Knowing assists Christian thinkers struggling to integrate science, environment, liberation, and their faith.

A new collection of essays on the living intelligence within nature from various spiritual and scientific perspectives, by James Lovelock, Dorothy MacLean, Joan Halifax, Thomas Berry, John Seed, Serge King, author of Earth Energies, and others.

In this comprehensive history of symbiosis theory--the first to be written--Jan Sapp masterfully traces its development from modest beginnings in the late nineteenth century to its current status as one of the key conceptual frameworks for the life sciences. The symbiotic perspective on evolution, which argues that "higher species" have evolved from a merger of two or more different kinds of organisms living together, is now clearly established with definitive molecular evidence demonstrating that mitochondria and chloroplasts have evolved from symbiotic bacteria. In telling the exciting story of an evolutionary biology tradition that has effectively challenged many key tenets of classical neo-Darwinism, Sapp sheds light on the phenomena, movements, doctrines, and controversies that have shaped attitudes about the scope and significance of symbiosis. Engaging and insightful, Evolution by Association will be avidly read by students and researchers across the life sciences.

This powerful book provides the first comprehensive overview of the intellectual roots of the worldwide environmental movement - from ancient religions and philosophies to modern science and ethics - and synthesizes them into a new philosophy of nature in which to ground our moral values and social action. It traces the origins and evolution of the dominant worldview that has built our industrial, technocratic, man-centered civilization, and brought us to the current ecological crisis. At the same time, it uncovers an alternative cultural tradition in the world's different religions and philosophies and describes how these ideas are now surfacing and coalescing to form an ecological sensibility and a new vision of nature which recognizes the inter-relatedness of all living things. Finally, this book integrates these varied traditions with modern physics and the science of ecology into a larger philosophical whole that provides the environmental movement with a comprehensive vision of an organic and sustainable society in harmony with nature. As ecological disasters continue to threaten our planet, becoming worse with every passing moment of indifference, it has become clear that we must take action. We must change our relationship with nature, and return to the days when our lives were intimately connected to and dependent upon the natural world. Nature's Web lays the foundations for that change by explaining where our complex ideas about nature come from, why they are wrong, and what we can do to change them.