The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?
E702869
"The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?" is a book by paleontologist Peter Ward that challenges the Gaia hypothesis by arguing that life tends to destabilize and ultimately destroy its own environment rather than sustain it.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T7990764 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? Context triple: [Peter Ward, notableWork, The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?]
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A.
Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth
"Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth" is James Lovelock’s influential book that introduces the Gaia hypothesis, proposing that Earth functions as a self-regulating, living system.
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B.
The Origin of Life
The Origin of Life is a seminal 1967 scientific work by John Desmond Bernal that explores hypotheses on how life first emerged from non-living matter on Earth.
-
C.
Gaia hypothesis
The Gaia hypothesis is a scientific theory proposing that Earth’s living organisms and their inorganic surroundings interact to form a self-regulating, complex system that helps maintain conditions suitable for life.
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D.
The Life and Death of Planet Earth
The Life and Death of Planet Earth is a popular science book that explores the long-term past and future evolution of Earth and its biosphere, co-authored by astrobiologist Donald Brownlee and paleontologist Peter Ward.
-
E.
Berserker hypothesis
The Berserker hypothesis is a proposed solution to the Fermi paradox suggesting that self-replicating killer probes or hostile civilizations systematically destroy emerging intelligent life in the galaxy, explaining our apparent cosmic silence.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? Target entity description: "The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?" is a book by paleontologist Peter Ward that challenges the Gaia hypothesis by arguing that life tends to destabilize and ultimately destroy its own environment rather than sustain it.
-
A.
Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth
"Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth" is James Lovelock’s influential book that introduces the Gaia hypothesis, proposing that Earth functions as a self-regulating, living system.
-
B.
The Origin of Life
The Origin of Life is a seminal 1967 scientific work by John Desmond Bernal that explores hypotheses on how life first emerged from non-living matter on Earth.
-
C.
Gaia hypothesis
The Gaia hypothesis is a scientific theory proposing that Earth’s living organisms and their inorganic surroundings interact to form a self-regulating, complex system that helps maintain conditions suitable for life.
-
D.
The Life and Death of Planet Earth
The Life and Death of Planet Earth is a popular science book that explores the long-term past and future evolution of Earth and its biosphere, co-authored by astrobiologist Donald Brownlee and paleontologist Peter Ward.
-
E.
Berserker hypothesis
The Berserker hypothesis is a proposed solution to the Fermi paradox suggesting that self-replicating killer probes or hostile civilizations systematically destroy emerging intelligent life in the galaxy, explaining our apparent cosmic silence.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (39)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | book ⓘ |
| argues |
life can be ultimately self-destructive
ⓘ
life tends to destabilize its environment ⓘ |
| author |
Peter D. Ward
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Peter Ward NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| critiques | Gaia hypothesis NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| discusses |
biological feedbacks on climate
ⓘ
mass extinction events in Earth history ⓘ role of life in geochemical cycles ⓘ |
| field |
Earth sciences
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
ecology ⓘ paleontology ⓘ |
| genre |
non-fiction
ⓘ
popular science ⓘ science book ⓘ |
| hasFormat |
hardcover
ⓘ
paperback ⓘ print ⓘ |
| hasPerspectiveOn |
habitability of Earth
ⓘ
long-term future of life on Earth ⓘ |
| inspiredBy | Medea from Greek mythology NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| ISBN | 9780691130750 ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
Earth system science
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Gaia hypothesis NERFINISHED ⓘ Medea hypothesis NERFINISHED ⓘ astrobiology ⓘ evolution ⓘ mass extinction ⓘ |
| notableFor | introducing the term "Medea hypothesis" to a broad audience ⓘ |
| pageCount | 208 ⓘ |
| proposes | Medea hypothesis ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 2009 ⓘ |
| publisher | Princeton University Press NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| subtitle | Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| targetAudience |
general audience
ⓘ
readers of popular science ⓘ |
| title | The Medea Hypothesis NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? Description of subject: "The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?" is a book by paleontologist Peter Ward that challenges the Gaia hypothesis by arguing that life tends to destabilize and ultimately destroy its own environment rather than sustain it.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.