From N. G. Van KAMPEN
Fred Pearce bemoans the possible disappearance of the word ‘Gaia’ because
Lovelock is considering the advisability of replacing it with ‘global geophysiology’
(Forum, 28 May). I only want to point out that the word ‘Gaia’ was used
long before Lovelock. In 1931, at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands,
the biologist L. G. M. Baas Becking gave an inaugural lecture with the title:
‘Gaia or Life and Earth’. It dealt with the adaptation of organisms to all
possible environments on earth, but not, of course, with the more far-fetched
ideas that Lovelock later connected with that name.
N. G. van Kampen Tienhoven, The Netherlands
