No Place for Man in Gaia

Biacentrism (reduction of human behaviour to the resultant of biological models) has recently gained increasing interest and approval, since it is regarded as the only scientific and hence wholly rational way of under-standing man and his relationships with the environment, and founding an ethics not based on myth. There is thus an assumed or stated need to reduce ethics, aesthetics, politics and religions to paradigms of reference for history (evolution) and the interactions that maintain the equilibrium of the bio-sphere (ecology and ethology). Ethics and bioethics share a common identity. The Gaia paradigm and the Neo-Darwinian paradigm, the two biological paradigms currently most in favour, lend themselves equally well to the justification of biocentrism.The Gaia paradigm regards the Earth as a complex living system capable of self-adjustment, yet exposed to the risk of collapse or profound changes mainly due to man's impact on the environment. It gives preference to the synchronic ecological approach.