Eric Whittaker's comment on Jasper Sky's talk on 5 May 2010 (see below)

When I heard this talk I was most impressed, but on reflection since then I have come to the conclusion that this was more due to his eloquence than to the substance of his arguments. The idea that Gaia can provide our "guiding story" is really very misguided. Although over a medium range of time the state of the earth's surface can be regarded as self-correcting and self-sustaining, it is also subject to horrendous variations. The period of the "snowball earth" was a major one, but there are others. The climate during the period of Pangea must have been frightful, and if I had been an inhabitant of the landmass that drifted over the south pole to become Antarctica I would not have had much faith in Gaia. In any case it is a very geocentric concept. Saturn's moon Titan has clouds and rain and lakes (admittedly of liquid methane, not water), so it presumably has a self-sustaining character, and could be personified as Titania. This immediately suggests that Gaia also bolongs to a midsummer night's dream! There must also be many vastly different situations on the surfaces of exo-planets yet to be investigated.
But of course the main objection to rearding ideas about Gaia as suitable for our "guiding story" is that it is a material object in space-time, and must pass away. Our story must concern non-material concepts such as wisdom, thought, ethics, etc. We already have such a "story". "In the beginning was the word.....and the word was God". Gaia seems to be just a modern name for th old nature gods, Baal and Ashtaroth. Eric Whittaker

(And what's wrong with that? And maybe Yahweh, Krishna, Allah et al too?? - David)