The polymath, who died last week, fought against the intellectual confines that stifle scientists
‘A true maverick’: James Lovelock at home in 2004.Three years ago, at a meeting that was held to celebrate his 100th birthday, the scientistwas the subject of a rigorous 90-minute interview on stage at Exeter University. The first question from the audience – which included a host of world-leading researchers – was put by a young man. “You are famous for thinking outside the box,” he asked.
The story, recalled by the conservationist Tim Flannery, was typical of a scientist who never accepted the intellectual confines that so many other researchers erect around their studies over the years. Thus the, at the age of 103, robs the world of a true scientific maverick. This was a polymath who never accepted a university-tenured position, although his academic influence was profound.
“My role has been to bring separated things together and make the whole more than the sum of the parts,” he once told the writer Jonathan Watts. Such an attitude flies in the face of modern academia, which all too often is filled with those who specialise in ever more fragmented niches. Critical to Lovelock’s success as an independent thinker was his role in the invention of the electron capture detector – a matchbox-size device that can measure tiny traces of toxic chemicals in the environment. This earned him enough money to achieve academic freedom, a liberation from intellectual constraint that he relished with considerable enthusiasm.
Gaia was a major influence on the green movement, though Lovelock was suspicious of its claims and aspirations. “Too many greens are not just ignorant of science, they hate science,” he argued, and likened them to “some global over-anxious mother figure who is so concerned about small risks that she ignores the real dangers”.
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