Methinks the hypothesis could not be tested.
There may even be 'proof' that it is of this class of concept, for those who do not believe in, "by inspection".
That is: a unique phenomenon in the yet-known milieu (life) is the situation. One need not anthropomorphize the planet to embellish 'Gaia' - nor may we dismiss the concept via any notion of 'statistical reasoning'.
Corollary: A collection of metaphors chosen by one group, is followed by repeated efforts to kill off members of another group (with slightly different ones) - an observable characteristic of the only example extant of this life phenomenon, at least among the most imaginative of the creatures. (Who are like us - therefore must be important)
Thus, re this tendency of homo-sap to create *personal* Gods in Our Likeness and infuse these with personalities, via our vivid imaginations: what is one justified in concluding from even this similar phenomenon, given the aforementioned Sample-of-One instance? We cannot study the process of Origin of this One sample. But we know how to design HVAC feedback loops and we naturally extrapolate that demonstrable knowledge of a process.
What we can't know from this Sample - is whether or not 'Gaia' (for ex.) is a mere thermostatic device or if it is umm Something Else upon which "some loop is closed" - perhaps something so unfathomable to us in our primitive state of knowledge, as to seem Magical.
IMO Gaia is as potentially useful a concept as is the Carnot cycle (a 'thing' which exists only in human mentation too - like so much else about which we tend to make the map/territory error). It needs less imagination than the construction of Gods and it derives from physics knowledge of process.
It's A-l-i-i-i-v-e !!! makes for good theatre, we note in our entertainments. *What* is to say that this One Known biosphere is not also alive ?? After all, one Can say, "as above so below" - as easily as not say this.
(And we both know well enough that, 'proof' is a word with rather limited application: perfectly applied only within rigorously stated mathematical axioms - damn near meaningless when applied to human behaviour; varying degrees of success in between. No?)
Postulates on the Gaia hypothesis:
1) It is incapable of resolution. Yet. It will depend upon whether or not the species survives long enough to mature.
2) At maturity, we may apperceive that the hypothesis can be resolved - or even superseded.
Ashton, or something
(What is meant by maturity ? [Hah])
