A singular scientist

James Lovelocks leven: één grote ode aan de onafhankelijk onderzoeker die zich niks aantrekt van instituten en specialismes. “Early on, the journal Nature rejected him because, as they told Lovelock: ‘We don’t publish papers from home addresses. They mostly come from cranks.’ To get around this, Lovelock took a visiting professorship at Reading University. Two decades later, his contributions to Nature accepted that he was indeed an ‘independent scientist’. By 2014, the Science Museum in London unveiled an exhibition celebrating his life with the strapline: ‘Scientist, Inventor, Maverick’. Gaia was long established by then.”

Mooi essay op Aeon: