James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia theory, which holds that the Earth behaves like a single living organism. Lovelock’s importance to science has been compared to that of Darwin.
James Lovelock is that rarest of rarities in the scientific world, a freelance scientist. Most scientists spend their careers inside institutions – universities, governments, research centres, corporate laboratories. James Lovelock has spent plenty of time inside institutions too – but as a migrant worker, not a settler.
