> How should we understand something like the Great Oxygenation Event in the light of this theory? The ancient war between anaerobic and aerobic factions is no

> How should we understand something like the Great Oxygenation Event in the light of this theory? The ancient war between anaerobic and aerobic factions is not over. Humans are a sophisticated biological weapon designed by the anaerobes to trigger the "clathrate gun" and return Earth to a non-oxygen-rich regime. It's a very clever plan. We work faster than the aerobes can react, in geological/evolutionary time were are an explosion. > what about this is self-regulating? The answer to that question is in Lovelock's book. If you don't want to read the whole thing you can start with Daisyworld: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld > Where is the homeostasis? Oxygen levels. The first clue that led to the Gaia Hypothesis was, IIRC, that the atmosphere of the Earth is not in chemical equilibrium. > What does the theory allow us to predict? Well, for one thing, if we find a planet that has a lot of oxygen in its atmosphere that it might have life on it.